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Canned Berries

A simple canned berry preserve made by boiling berries with water and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓

Canned Berries

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove stems or hulls from the berries; if gathered carefully, they won't need washing.

  2. Place the berries in a porcelain kettle on the stove and add ½ cup of water to prevent burning.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim off any foam, and add sugar to taste.

  4. Boil for five minutes, then fill jars and seal tightly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Berries
Supply the fruit, flavor and color, and release juice as they cook.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the berries.

The step that matters

Adding the water before heating. Berries contain little free liquid when first heated, so they can scorch on the bottom of the kettle before their juices release. The added water gives them liquid to start simmering evenly and prevents burning.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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