Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Plum Juice
Ingredients
Directions
Crush the plums in a kettle with a wooden pestle.
Heat slowly and boil gently for about 25 minutes.
Crush again, then pour through two layers of cheesecloth in a colander to drain.
When cool, twist the cloth to extract all the juice.
Clean the kettle and return the juice to the fire.
When it boils, skim the surface and repeat this 3 or 4 times.
Add ½ pint of sugar for every pint of juice and boil for 5 to 6 minutes, skimming carefully.
Fill hot sterilized jars or bottles with the juice.
Place the jars in boiling water and simmer for 25 minutes.
Refill with boiling juice, remove from heat, and seal.
Store in a dark place away from drafts.
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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Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,313 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
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