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 Jam of All Colours
Ingredients
Directions
Strip the currants and place them in a pan.
Boil the currants for a few minutes.
Add the sugar and mash the fruit with a wooden spoon.
Boil gently for 30 minutes.
Fill your jars with the jam.
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
- Currants
- Provide the fruit base, along with pectin and acid that help the jam set as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, with the fruit's pectin, helps the jam thicken and set.
The step that matters
Boil gently for 30 minutes. Sugar and pectin need sustained heat to reach the setting point. Boiling too hard for too long can darken the flavor and over-concentrate the jam, so keep the boil steady rather than vigorous.
“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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