Currants and Sultanas

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •2 clean, tightly woven cotton or linen kitchen towels
• •Medium-mesh sieve large enough to shake the fruit freely
• •Pale rimmed tray for spotting stems and stones
• •2 wide-mouth 500 ml airtight jars

Instructions

1. 1

   Prepare a dry station

   Set out two clean, tightly woven kitchen towels, a medium-mesh sieve over a pale rimmed tray, and two clean, completely dry jars. Keep the currants and sultanas in separate batches from beginning to end. The fruit, towels, sieve, and jars must all be dry because moisture turns the flour to paste and shortens the fruit's keeping life.

   Use a smooth cotton or linen towel, not loose terry cloth. Loops catch the fruit and shed lint precisely where you're trying to remove debris.
2. 2

   Dredge the sultanas

   Toss the sultanas with half the flour until every piece is lightly dusted. Turn them into the centre of one towel, gather the corners upward, and close the cloth like a purse. Rub and roll the bundle briskly between your hands for 30 to 45 seconds, using enough pressure to loosen dust and stems without crushing the fruit. If the flour smears into paste, stop. The fruit or towel was damp, but ça se rattrape: spread the sultanas on a clean tray until fully dry, then begin again with a fresh dry towel and flour.

3. 3

   Sieve and inspect

   Turn the sultanas into the sieve and shake it vigorously over the tray, stirring the fruit gently with your fingers so the flour, dust, and detached stems fall away. Continue until no loose powder drops from beneath. Spread the fruit in one layer and pass through it piece by piece, removing any stems still attached. If flour remains caught in the wrinkles, return the fruit to the sieve and shake again rather than rinsing fruit intended for storage.

4. 4

   Clean the currants

   Repeat the same sequence with the currants and remaining flour: dredge them, close them in the second towel like a purse, rub briskly, then shake them vigorously in the sieve. Currants are smaller, so use a mesh fine enough to hold every fruit while allowing flour and grit to pass through.

5. 5

   Search for stones

   Spread the currants in a thin layer on the pale tray under strong light. Move them one by one into an inspected pile, removing every remaining stem and any speck of grit. A currant gives slightly when pressed, while a stone stays hard and may click against the tray. If anything is doubtful, discard it. This inspection is the dish, not brigade scaffolding, and no sieve can do it for you.

   Work from one side of the tray to the other and keep the inspected pile separate. If the piles become mixed, spread them out and begin that section again. Ça se rattrape.
6. 6

   Jar them separately

   Transfer the currants and sultanas to separate airtight jars and label each one. Store them in a cool, dark, dry cupboard. If condensation appears inside a jar, remove the fruit immediately, spread it out until completely dry, and return it to a clean dry jar. The preparation is now ready to measure directly into cooked recipes whenever the canon calls for it.

Chef Tips

• •Currants here are raisins de Corinthe, tiny dried seedless grapes. They are not fresh or dried blackcurrants, which are cassis and behave quite differently.
• •Use ordinary all-purpose flour. Its work is mechanical: it coats the sticky fruit so rubbing and sieving can carry away dust and loose stems. Nearly all of it should end on the tray, not in the jars.
• •Do not wash the full batch before storage. Damp dried fruit can ferment or mold. If a later recipe asks for rinsed or soaked fruit, treat only the amount needed for that recipe.
• •All-purpose flour is a raw ingredient, so use this dry-cleaned fruit directly in preparations that will be cooked. For an uncooked preparation, rinse the required portion just before use and dry it thoroughly.

Advance Preparation

• •This is pantry work by design. Clean the fruit when it comes home, then it will be ready to measure without delaying a cake, pudding, farce, or sauce.
• •Stored separately in airtight jars in a cool, dark cupboard, the fruit keeps its best quality for about 6 months or until the package date, whichever comes first.
• •If a recipe calls for soaked fruit, complete the dry cleaning and inspection first. Soak only the portion needed, since soaked fruit belongs in the recipe, not back in the storage jar.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 38g)