Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Siberian Crab Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the syrup
Boil the crabs in enough water to cover them for 2 hours.
Place the crabs in a jelly bag and allow them to drain without squeezing.
Make the jelly
For each pint of the resulting syrup, add 1 pound of loaf sugar.
Boil the mixture for 30 minutes.
Use the reddest crabs for a beautiful color in the jelly.
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 + syruptop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,842 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Crab + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together407 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).
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Crab + syruptop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Crabs
- Boiling them releases their flavor and red color into the water, forming the base syrup.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and, as it boils down with the liquid, helps it set into a jelly.
The step that matters
Drain without squeezing. Squeezing the jelly bag forces fine solids through the cloth, which makes the syrup cloudy. Letting it drain naturally keeps the finished jelly clear.
“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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