Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Plum Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the fruit
Stone the plums and place them in a kettle with a small amount of water.
Boil until the fruit softens, then mash to a pulp with a wooden pestle, and do not remove from the stove.
Add sugar and finish
Add 1 lb of sugar to the pulp.
Boil for 15 to 20 minutes longer.
Transfer the marmalade to jars.
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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Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,313 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Plums
- Supply the fruit pulp and flavor that form the marmalade's body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken and keep as the mixture cooks down.
The step that matters
Boiling after the sugar is added. Sugar thickens the pulp as water evaporates, so the full boiling time is needed for a set marmalade. Leaving the pan unattended can scorch the sugar on the base of the kettle.
“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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