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 ↓
Currant Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Make the juice
Pick the currants and add a little juice.
Boil and rub them through a fine sieve.
Boil the juice for 15 minutes.
Make the paste
Add the sugar and stir until melted.
Pour the mixture onto plates.
Dry it in a warm place and shape as desired.
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
- Currant juice
- Provides the fruit flavour and the natural pectin that lets the paste set firm.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the paste and, once dissolved and cooked down, helps it set and keep its shape.
The step that matters
Boil the juice for 15 minutes. Boiling concentrates the juice and drives off water, so the pectin and sugar can later gel. Too little boiling leaves the paste soft and sticky.
“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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