Why it works: Black currant and arrowroot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Fruit Drinks
Ingredients
Directions
Make the drink
Combine black currant jam and water in a pot.
Heat over medium until the jam melts.
Cover the pot.
Strain before serving.
Thicken with arrowroot
Mix arrowroot with cold water.
Add the mixture to the hot liquid and stir.
Bring to a boil.
Serve
Let cool before serving.
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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Black currant + arrowroottop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Black currant jam or jelly
- Provides the drink's sweetness, fruit flavor and deep color.
- Arrowroot
- Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the drink a smoother body.
The step that matters
Mix arrowroot with cold water before adding it. Arrowroot added dry or straight into hot liquid clumps instead of dispersing. A cold-water slurry lets the starch spread evenly, so it thickens smoothly when heated.
“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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