Why it works: Black currant and sugar work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Black Currant Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Gather currants when dry and remove them from the stalks.
Bruise the currants in a bowl.
Add 1½ pounds of sugar to the currants.
Cook and pot
Boil the mixture for 1 hour, stirring constantly.
Transfer the jam into pots.
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 + sugartop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together393 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
- Black currants
- Provide the fruit flavour, natural pectin and acidity that help the jam set.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness, helps the jam set, and draws water out to preserve it.
The step that matters
Boil for 1 hour, stirring constantly. Sugar and pectin need sustained heat to reach the concentration required for a set. Stirring constantly prevents the sugar and fruit from scorching on the base of the pan, which would give a burnt taste.
“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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