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 or Black Currant Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the currants
Remove the stems from the currants.
Place the currants in a vessel over boiling water and let them cook for 20 to 30 minutes.
Pass the cooked currants through a fine sieve.
Make the paste
Heat the currant pulp over low heat and stir in 1 pound of powdered sugar.
Stir until it boils once, then remove from heat.
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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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 main flavor and the pulp that becomes the paste, rich in natural pectin for body.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the paste and adds body as it thickens while heated.
The step that matters
Stirring the sugar into the pulp and boiling once. Heat drives off water and concentrates the sugar and pectin so the paste sets firm. Overheating can scorch the sugar and dull the flavor, while too little cooking leaves it loose.
“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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