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 ↓
Neapolitan Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Stone the cherries and preserve the juice.
Mix all the fruits and strain through a jelly bag.
Measure the juice and boil one pint at a time.
Add one pound of sugar for every pint of juice and proceed as with other fruit jellies.
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.
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Strawberries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and juice that forms the jelly.
- Raspberries
- Add aroma and fruity flavour to the blended juice.
- Currants
- Contribute natural pectin and acidity that help the jelly set.
- Red cherries
- Add sweet-tart fruit flavour and colour to the jelly.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the juice and helps the jelly set and keep.
The step that matters
Boil one pint at a time. Boiling small batches keeps the juice at a steady, rapid boil so it reaches the setting point. Adding sugar to the measured juice then lets the sugar dissolve and the pectin gel properly.
“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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