Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Plum Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the plums
Weigh the plums before stoning them.
Remove the stones and place the plums in a large dish.
Sprinkle roughly-pounded sugar over the plums in a 2:1 ratio of sugar to fruit.
Let the plums sit for one day.
Cook the jam
Transfer the plums to a preserving pan and simmer gently by the fire for about 30 minutes.
Boil the mixture rapidly for 16 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove any scum that rises to the surface.
Optionally, crack some of the stones and add a few kernels to the jam just before it finishes cooking.
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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Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,313 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
- Plums
- Provide the fruit, pectin and flavour that form the body of the jam.
- Loaf sugar
- Draws water out of the fruit and sets the jam, while adding sweetness and preserving it.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture rapidly for 16 minutes, stirring constantly. Rapid boiling concentrates the sugar and fruit until the jam reaches setting point. Constant stirring prevents the sugar from scorching on the base of the pan, which would give a burnt taste.
“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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