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Dessert

Orgeat

A syrup made from bitter and sweet almonds, sugar, water, lemon peel, and neroli essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Orgeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Boil the bitter and sweet almonds in water for 10 minutes.

  2. Transfer the almonds to cold water and remove their skins.

Make the syrup

  1. Pound the almonds with the sugar using a mortar and pestle.

  2. Add 9 quarts of water and lemon peel to the almond mixture.

  3. Boil the mixture for 1-2 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture through a sieve, pressing out all the almond milk.

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. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Bitter almonds
Provide the characteristic bitter, nutty almond flavour that defines orgeat.
Sweet almonds
Supply the main almond body and milky texture once pounded and strained.
White sugar
Sweetens the drink and, with water, gives the syrup its body and preservative strength.
Lemon peel
Adds bright citrus aroma that balances the sweetness of the syrup.

The step that matters

Pressing out the almond milk. Pressing the pulp through the sieve extracts the emulsified almond oils and solids that give orgeat its milky body. Pressing too little leaves the syrup thin and weak in flavour.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, 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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