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Red-Currant Syrup

A syrup made from red currants, sugar, and brandy, preserved with salad oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and red currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 57 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Red-Currant Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Mash the red currants in a bowl with a wooden spoon and let them stand covered for 3‑4 hours.

  2. Strain the juice through a jelly‑bag and measure it.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine the juice with ½ lb of sugar and boil until it reduces to a clear syrup, skimming as needed.

  2. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Bottle and store

  1. Pour the syrup into small bottles, adding a little salad oil on top to preserve it, then cork tightly.

  2. Store the bottles upright in a dry cupboard until needed.

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. Currant + red curranttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Brandy + red curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + red curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Red currants
Provide the tart, fruity acidity that gives the syrup its flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, once boiled down, helps the syrup keep by concentrating it.
Salad oil
Forms a layer on top of the syrup that limits contact with air.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice with sugar to a clear syrup. The boil must reduce the mixture enough to concentrate the sugar. If it is under-reduced, the syrup stays too watery and is more likely to spoil in storage. Skimming keeps it clear.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, sugar, brandy):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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