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Preserved Currants

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,918 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Preserved Currants

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pick out all the stones or seeds from the currants with a pin, minimizing skin damage.

  2. Bind six bunches of currants with thread to a stick about 2 inches long and place them on an inverted sieve.

  3. Boil a good syrup for 15 minutes, then add a few bunches of currants, enough to cover the bottom of the preserving pan.

  4. Boil the currants for six times, skimming off the scum with stiff paper.

  5. Transfer the currants to well-dried pots and pour some apple or other jelly over them if desired.

  6. For drying, warm some bunches in a pan, drain the syrup, dust with sifted sugar, and place on a wire sieve.

  7. Change the sieve and turn the bunches daily for 3-4 days until completely dry, then store in papered boxes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, apple):

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, apple. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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