Why it works: Sugar and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓
Gooseberry Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the gooseberries
Remove seeds from the gooseberries and rinse them in water.
Drain the gooseberries in a sieve.
Mash the gooseberries in a bowl and mix with an equal weight of sugar.
Cook the jam
In a pot, boil the gooseberries in water until they are mashed.
Squeeze the mixture and add 1 pound of sugar for every pint of liquid.
Boil and skim the mixture, then add the green gooseberries.
Continue boiling until the jam is thick and clear, then pour into 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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Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Green gooseberries
- Provide the fruit, pectin and tart flavour that form the body of the jam.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jam and helps it set into a thick, spreadable texture.
- Currant juice
- Adds extra acidity and natural pectin to help the jam set.
The step that matters
Continue boiling until the jam is thick and clear. Sugar and fruit acid must be cooked to the setting point for the jam to gel. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull.
“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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