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Dessert

Amber Jam

A jam made from young carrots, sugar, lemon rind, lemon juice, and bitter almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,351 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Amber Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Wash and scrape the carrots, then cut them into round pieces.

  2. Simmer the carrots until soft, then beat them through a fine sieve.

Make the jam

  1. Weigh the pulp and combine it with the same weight of sugar.

  2. Boil the sugar and pulp together for 15 minutes, stirring and skimming constantly.

  3. When cold, add the lemon rind, lemon juice, and chopped almonds, then pour into pots.

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. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Carrot + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together416 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Young carrots
Provide the main bulk and body of the jam once cooked and sieved into pulp.
Crushed sugar
Adds sweetness and, with boiling, thickens the pulp into a set jam.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and supports setting.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic citrus oils for fragrance and flavour.
Bitter almonds
Add a bitter, nutty aroma that contrasts with the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil the sugar and pulp together for 15 minutes. Boiling must be steady and the mixture stirred constantly, since sugar scorches easily on the base of the pan. Skimming removes foam so the jam stays clear and cooks evenly.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Kalefits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, almond. 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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