Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
English Guava
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Strip the stalks from the bullace and cut part of them.
Place the bullace in stone jars and add 1 to 2 pounds of imperatrice plums if available.
Put the jars in pans of water and boil them.
Extract and cook the juice
Drain off the juice and strain it through a jelly bag.
Weigh the juice and boil it quickly for 15 to 20 minutes.
Stir in 3/4 pound of sugar for every pound of juice until dissolved.
Remove the scum and boil again for 8 to 12 minutes until it jellies.
Set
Pour the jelly into shallow pans or small molds and let it set before serving.
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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Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,313 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Shepherd's bullace
- Provides the fruit juice and natural pectin that help the jelly set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set firm when boiled with the juice.
The step that matters
Boiling the juice with sugar until it jellies. Pectin and acid in the juice only form a firm gel when enough sugar is dissolved and the mixture reaches a proper set point. Undercooking leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff or cloudy.
“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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