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Red Currant bushes are hardy and will grow anywhere -- hedgerows, ditches, or in gardens. Wild Red Currants are always red; recent cultivated varieties include whitish ones.

Fresh Red Currants tend to be sold in punnets or small boxes with their stems and stalks still attached. Frozen ones will normally have stems and stalks removed.

The fruit is a favourite for jellies because of its tart flavour.

Cooking Tips
Wash by swishing in a bowl of water. Drain in a colander, remove stems. Some suggest using a fork to comb the berries off their stalks, but often it is just as easy to "comb" them through your fingers.

Nutrition
100g serving: 21 cals, 30 mg Vitamin C.

Some folk medicine practitioners say that Red Currant jelly is antiseptic, and if applied immediately can ease the pain of a burn and prevent the formation of blisters.

Equivalents
1 pound = 450g = 2 to 2 1/2 cups
4 oz = 115g = 3/4 cup

Storage
Store unwashed in a plastic bag in the fridge for up to 4 days. Freeze for up to 1 year.

Language Notes
Often spelled in a vaguely Germanic way as all one word, "Redcurrants".

Also called:

See Also:

Bar-Le-Duc Jelly, Currants, White Currants

Other entries for:

Berries
Akala Berries, Aronia Berries, Assai Berries, Baba Berries, Barberries, Bilberries, Black Gooseberries, Blackberries, Blueberries, Buffalo Currants, Bumbleberries, Cape Gooseberries, Cloudberries, Cranberries, Currants, Elderberries, Garden Huckleberries, Gooseberries, Haw Flakes, Hawthorne Berries, Huckleberry, Hudson Bay Currants, Jostaberries, Lingonberries, Mulberries, Otaheite Gooseberry, Raspberries, Red Currants, Saskatoon Berries, Sea Buckthorn, Serendipity Berries, Strawberries, Sunberries, Tayberries, Thimbleberries, Ugni, Waimate Berries, White Currants, Wineberries, Wonderberries, Worcesterberries

Other entries for:

Soft Fruit
Cherries, Grapes

Other entries for:

Fruit
Bananas, Bletting, Candied Fruit, Citrus Fruit, Dried Fruit, Drupes, Hard Fruit, Olives, Rhubarb

Related Recipes

Red Relish, Shrewsbury Sauce