Name: Spiced Currants
Ingredients: 5 pounds ripe currants; 1 tablespoon cloves; 3 pounds white sugar; 1 tablespoon allspice; 1 tablespoon cinnamon; ½ pint vinegar; 1 tablespoon nutmeg

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Currants

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the currants for one hour.
Add the sugar, spices, and vinegar.
Boil for an additional 30 minutes.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,331 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Currants: Provide the main fruit body and tartness that the sugar and vinegar balance.
White sugar: Adds sweetness and, as it dissolves and thickens with the fruit, helps preserve the mixture.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the mixture.
Cloves: Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Allspice: Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Cinnamon: Contributes sweet, warm aromatic flavour.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, vinegar, nutmeg):

Figfits better
Orangefits better
Vanillafits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, vinegar, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.