Why it works: Sugar and red currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Strawberry Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Choose strawberries that are not too ripe and of good color.
Remove the stalks.
Place the strawberries in a dish and sprinkle half the sugar over them. Gently shake the dish to distribute the sugar evenly and let it sit for one day.
Make the currant juice
To make the currant juice, place currants in a jar and put the jar in a saucepan of boiling water. Simmer until the juice is extracted, then pour it off.
Cook the jam
In a saucepan, combine 1 pint of the currant juice with the remaining sugar. Boil until it forms a thin syrup.
Add the strawberries to the syrup and simmer until the mixture is sufficiently jellied, stirring carefully to keep the fruit whole.
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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Sugar + red curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,156 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Strawberries
- Provide the fruit flavor and the bulk of the jam.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the jam and helps it set into a thick, spreadable texture.
- Red currant juice
- Adds tartness and natural pectin to help the jam gel.
The step that matters
Simmering the strawberries in the syrup until jellied. Cooking must continue long enough for the sugar and fruit pectin to reach the gel point, but overcooking darkens the color and flavor. Stirring gently keeps the berries whole.
“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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