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To Preserve Morrello Cherries

A method for preserving ripe Morrell cherries in a sugar and currant juice syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and currant 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 ↓

To Preserve Morrello Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cherries

  1. Remove the stalks from the cherries and prick them with a pin.

  2. Sprinkle part of the sugar over the cherries and let them stand for a few hours.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Dissolve the remaining sugar in the currant juice over low heat.

  2. Add the cherries to the sugar mixture and gently scald them.

  3. Let the cherries sit overnight, then scald them again.

  4. Carefully remove the cherries and boil the syrup until thick.

  5. Pour the thick syrup over the cherries; if too thin, boil again.

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. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant 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

Morrello cherries
Provide the fruit, which softens and holds its shape during gentle scalding.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, once thickened, forms the syrup that preserves the fruit.
Currant juice
Adds liquid and tart flavour to dissolve the sugar into the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick. Sugar concentration must rise enough to set and preserve the fruit. Boiling too little leaves the syrup thin, so it must be boiled again, while overboiling can make it overly stiff.

“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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