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Red-curraitt Jam

A jam made from red currants and sugar, boiled and preserved in pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and sugar 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 ↓

Red-curraitt Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gather the currants on a fine day and weigh them.

  2. Strip the currants from the stalks and place them in a preserving pan with the sugar.

Make the jam

  1. Stir and boil the mixture for about 2 hours, carefully removing the scum as it rises.

  2. Pour the jam into pots and let it cool.

Seal the pots

  1. Cover the jam with oiled paper, then place a piece of tissue paper brushed with egg white over it.

  2. Press the tissue paper around the top of the pot; when dry, it will be hard and air-tight.

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

Currant and sugar 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

Currants
Provide the fruit flavour, tartness and natural pectin that help the jam set.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it concentrates during boiling, helps it set and preserves it.

The step that matters

Removing the scum while boiling. Scum is foam and impurities that rise to the surface during boiling. Skimming it keeps the jam clear and fresh-tasting. Boiling the mixture to a thick consistency is what lets the sugar and fruit pectin set the jam.

“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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