Why it works: Red currant and brandy work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 105 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓
Raspberry Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Rub fresh raspberries through a wicker sieve to obtain 1 pint of pulp.
Cook the jam
In a preserving pan, combine the raspberry pulp with 1 pound of broken sugar over a brisk fire.
Once it begins to boil, skim it well and stir for 20 minutes.
Pot and cover
Pour the jam into small pots.
Cut white paper to fit the tops of the pots.
Dip the paper in brandy.
Place the paper over the jam when cold, securing with double paper.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together105 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + red curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,156 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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
- Raspberries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and the bulk of the jam's body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jam and, with boiling, helps it thicken and keep.
- Red currant juice
- Adds tartness and natural pectin to help the jam set.
The step that matters
Skim and stir during the boil. Once sugar is added, the jam can scorch on the base of the pan and thicken unevenly. Skimming foam and stirring steadily keeps the jam clear and the heat even.
Swap the red currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Red currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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