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Sauce

Currant Sauce

A sauce made from boiled currants, water, a crumb of a penny roll, cloves, port wine, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and port wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 356 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Currant Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the currants in water for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the roll crumb, cloves, port wine, and butter.

  3. Stir until the mixture is perfectly smooth.

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 + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Currant + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried currants
Provide the main fruit flavour and sweetness, and soften as they simmer in the water.
Penny roll crumb
Thickens the sauce as it absorbs liquid and helps it become smooth.
Port wine
Adds depth, sweetness and a fruity aroma to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir until perfectly smooth. Bread crumb needs time to fully absorb liquid and break down. Stopping early leaves lumps and a grainy texture, so keep stirring until the sauce looks even.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, port wine, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Macefits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, port wine, butter. 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.

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