Why it works: Red currant and white currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓
Currant Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Bruise the fruit slightly and place it in an earthen jar.
Cover the jar closely and place it in a saucepan of cold water.
Simmer gently until the juice flows freely.
Finish
Strain the mixture and leave it to cool overnight.
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.
-
Red currant + white curranttop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together4 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Red currants
- Provide the main tart fruit flavour and juice for the syrup.
- White currants
- Add juice and a milder, lighter fruit flavour to the syrup.
- Cherries or raspberries
- Optionally add extra fruit flavour and aroma to the juice.
The step that matters
Simmer gently until the juice flows freely. Gentle heat in a covered jar in water draws out juice without boiling the fruit hard. Vigorous boiling can cook off fresh fruit flavour and make the juice cloudier.
“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.
More currant syrup recipes
You might also like
Red Currant Jelly65 recipes
Currant Ice Cream32 recipes
Currant Sherbet9 recipes
Currant and Raspberry Ice7 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.