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Dessert

Orange Preserve

A preserve made by boiling oranges and apples, then combining their juices with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Boil the oranges in a large saucepan with plenty of water, changing the water frequently, for 7 to 8 hours until tender.

  2. Remove the oranges, slice them without peeling, and discard the seeds.

  3. Boil the pippins in water until they turn to a pulp.

  4. Pass the apple pulp through a jelly bag to extract the juice.

Make the preserve

  1. Weigh the juice from the apples and oranges, then measure out an equal weight of sugar.

  2. Boil the sugar with the apple juice, skimming off any foam.

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. Orange + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Oranges
Provide the bitter flavour and aroma that define the preserve, and their thick skins hold up to long simmering.
Pippins (apples)
Their juice adds natural pectin and acidity to help the preserve set.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, at this quantity, helps it thicken and keep.

The step that matters

Skimming off the foam. Foam rising while the sugar and juice boil carries impurities and air that can cloud the preserve and spoil its clarity. Removing it keeps the finished preserve clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, 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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