Why it works: Black currant and sugar work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Red or Black Currant Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pulp
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.
Stir in 1 pound of powdered sugar for every pound of pulp.
Continue stirring until it comes to a boil.
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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Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together393 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
- Currants
- Provide the fruit pulp that forms the body and flavor of the paste.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the paste and helps thicken it as the pulp is cooked down.
The step that matters
Continue stirring until it comes to a boil. Pulp and sugar can scorch on the bottom of the pan if not stirred constantly over low heat, which leaves a burnt taste in the paste.
“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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