Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Cranberry Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Make the jelly
Prepare a strong isinglass jelly and let it cool.
Add the juice of the cranberries and sugar to the jelly.
Beat the egg whites to a froth and mix them in.
Let the mixture boil three to four times without stirring.
Strain and set
Strain it through a jelly bag and pour into a mold.
Allow to set 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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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Isinglass
- Gelling agent that sets the cooled liquid into a firm jelly.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the sharp flavour of the cranberry juice.
- Cranberry juice
- Provides the tart flavour, aroma and colour of the jelly.
- Egg whites
- Coagulate during boiling and trap impurities, clarifying the jelly.
The step that matters
Boiling without stirring. Stirring breaks up the egg white that forms as it coagulates, so it cannot gather impurities. Leaving the mixture undisturbed lets the coagulated whites rise and carry sediment, which the jelly bag then removes, leaving a clear jelly.
“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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