Why it works: Sugar and red currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Strawberry Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the strawberries
Choose strawberries that are not too ripe and of good color.
Remove the stalks and place the strawberries in a dish.
Sprinkle half the sugar over the strawberries and gently shake the dish to distribute it evenly.
Let the strawberries sit for one day.
Make the currant juice
To make the currant juice, place currants in a jar and simmer in a saucepan of boiling water until the juice is extracted.
Pour off the juice and place 1 pint in a saucepan.
Cook the jam
Boil the currant juice with the remaining sugar until it forms a thin syrup.
Add the strawberries and sugar to the syrup and simmer until it jellies, stirring carefully to keep the fruit whole.
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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Sugar + red curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,156 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Strawberries
- Provide the main fruit flavor and the bulk of the jam.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the jam and helps it set into a gel as it cooks.
- Red currant juice
- Adds tartness and natural pectin to help the jam jell.
The step that matters
Simmering until the jam jells. Cook only until the jam reaches a gel point. Overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavor, while undercooking leaves it runny. Stirring gently keeps the strawberries whole.
“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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