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Seville Orange Syrup

A syrup made from grated Seville orange, orange juice, lemon juice, and fine syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Seville Orange Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Grate the Seville orange very finely.

  2. Juice the eight Seville oranges and the lemon, including the rind.

  3. Mix the grated orange and juices well with a spoon.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the syrup until it is almost caramel.

  2. Strain the juice through a fine sieve and mix it with the syrup.

Bottle

  1. Pour the mixture into bottles while still warm.

  2. Cork the bottles and seal them the next day.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Orange + syruptop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,179 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Seville oranges
Provide the bitter, aromatic juice and flavour that define the syrup.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the citrus flavour and balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Fine syrup
Supplies sweetness and body, and helps preserve the flavoured liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until it is almost caramel. Sugar syrup darkens quickly near caramelisation, so it can scorch and turn bitter if left unattended. Stop once it reaches the target colour and before the sugar burns.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, syrup):

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Vanillafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, syrup. 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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