Why it works: Red currant and 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 ↓
Currant Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Examine the currants and remove any leaves or useless stalks.
Place the currants in a pot and heat until all the juice is extracted.
Strain the juice through a flannel bag two or three times for a fine texture.
Make the jelly
In a large preserving pan, combine the syrup and currant juice.
Boil the mixture until it reaches caramel height, then continue boiling for 20 minutes or longer.
Skim the surface often and pour the jelly into pots or glasses.
Cover with brandy paper.
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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Red currant + curranttop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together57 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Red currant + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together105 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Syrup + brandytop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together561 recipes
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Red currant + syruptop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together76 recipes
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Red currants
- Provide the natural pectin and acidity that allow the juice to set into jelly.
- Syrup
- Supplies sweetness and, with boiling, helps the juice thicken into a firm set.
The step that matters
Boiling to caramel height. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugar and pectin until the mixture sets. Stopping too early leaves a runny jelly, while boiling too long can darken and sour the flavour.
Swap the red currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, currant, brandy):
- Apricotfits about as well
- Red currantthe original
- Raisinfits about as well
- Vanillafits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, currant, 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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