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Crab Apple and Mint Jelly

A jelly made from crab apples, water, sugar, and mint essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Crab Apple and Mint Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Boil the crab apples in water until they can be mashed.

  2. Let the mixture drip overnight in a cheesecloth jelly bag.

  3. In the morning, pour the desired juice into a vessel.

Make the jelly

  1. Add 1 cup of sugar and enough essence of mint to taste and color the mixture green.

  2. Boil until it thickens, then pour into jelly glasses.

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. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Apple + minttop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together203 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Crab + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together407 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

  4. Crab + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Sugar + minttop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Crab apples
Their natural pectin and acidity help the juice set into a firm jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it set and keep its texture.
Essence of mint
Adds a minty aroma and flavor and gives the jelly its green color.

The step that matters

Boil until it thickens. Pectin and sugar set only at a sufficient concentration. Stopping too early leaves a runny jelly, while overcooking can darken the color and flavor.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, apple, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, apple, sugar. 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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