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Dessert

Black-currant Jam

Jam made from black currants and sugar, boiled until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 and dissolve sugar

  1. Prepare the currants and place them in a preserving pan.

  2. Gradually add the sugar while stirring.

Cook the jam

  1. Boil until the jam thickens when a little is poured onto a plate.

  2. Skim off any foam and stir well during boiling.

  3. Cook for about 1 hour or more after the jam starts boiling.

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. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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, pectin and acidity that give the jam its flavour and set.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and helps it thicken and keep as a preserve.

The step that matters

Skim foam and stir during boiling. Foam that stays on the surface can cloud the jam and carry off-flavours, and stirring prevents the sugar and fruit from scorching on the base of the pan. Both help keep the jam clean-tasting and evenly cooked.

“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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