Why it works: Red currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Currant Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Stalk and heat the red currants as for jelly.
Pour off three parts of the juice and keep the pulp.
Boil the mixture briskly until it forms a dry paste.
For each 7 ounces of the paste, add 14 ounces of pounded sugar.
Boil for 30 minutes longer, stirring to prevent burning.
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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Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,156 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Red currants
- Their pulp and natural pectin form the body of the paste as it thickens.
- Pounded sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the paste become firm and glossy as it cooks down.
The step that matters
Stirring during the final boil. Once the sugar is added, the thick paste is prone to scorching on the bottom of the pan. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the sugar from caramelising unevenly and burning.
“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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