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Green Currant Jam

Jam made from green currants and sugar, cooked until it gels.

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

Green Currant Jam

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bruise part of the currants with a small amount of sugar and place in a preserving pan.

  2. Heat over a very gentle flame, stirring constantly until the fruit yields enough moisture.

  3. Add the remaining currants and sugar, mixing well.

  4. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes, or until it jellies strongly when falling from a skimmer.

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. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant 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 body, natural pectin and acidity that give the jam its tart flavor and set.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, at high concentration, helps it set and preserves it.

The step that matters

Boil until it jellies. Setting depends on the sugar, fruit pectin and acid reaching the right concentration. Boiling too briefly leaves the jam runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavor. Testing by how it falls from a skimmer shows when it is ready.

“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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