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Dessert

Spiced Currants

A preserved fruit made by cooking currants with sugar, spices, vinegar, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Currants

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine currants, sugar, cinnamon, mace, cloves, and mustard seed bag.

  2. Cook slowly for one hour.

  3. Stir in vinegar and cook for an additional fifteen minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Finally, add the chopped raisins and mix well.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Currants
Provide the fruit base and tartness that the sugar and vinegar balance.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as it dissolves, thickens the mixture into a preserve.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and extra sweetness throughout the mixture.

The step that matters

Stirring in the vinegar. Adding vinegar and cooking for fifteen minutes while stirring constantly keeps the sugary mixture from scorching on the bottom of the pot, since sugar darkens and burns quickly once the mixture is thick.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, sugar, cinnamon, clove, mustard, vinegar, raisin):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, sugar, cinnamon, clove, mustard, vinegar, raisin. 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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