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Red-currant Jam

A jam made from red currants and sugar boiled and preserved in pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and sugar 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 ↓

Red-currant Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gather the fruit on a fine day and weigh it.

  2. Strip the currants from the stalks and place them in a preserving pan with the sugar.

Make the jam

  1. Stir and boil for about 30 minutes, carefully removing the scum as it rises.

  2. Pour the jam into pots and let it cool.

Cover and seal

  1. Cover the pot with oiled paper.

  2. Place a layer of tissue paper brushed with egg white over the top.

  3. Press the paper around the pot's top; when dry, it will be hard and air‑tight.

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. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Red currants
Provide the fruit, natural pectin and acidity that help the jam set.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jam, helps it set and acts as a preservative.

The step that matters

Boiling and skimming. The mixture must boil long enough for water to evaporate and the pectin and acid to set the jam. Removing the scum as it rises keeps the jam clear and stops foam from spoiling it.

“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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