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Orgeat Water

A sweet almond syrup made with sweet and bitter almonds, water, sugar, and orange‑flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Orgeat Water

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds in boiling water.

  2. Pound the almonds very fine in a mortar, adding a small amount of water to prevent oiling.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine the pounded almonds with 1 quart of water.

  2. Add sugar and orange-flower water to taste, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Filter through a fine sieve, then serve chilled.

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 + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavor and body of the syrup.
Bitter almonds
Add a sharper almond aroma that gives the syrup its characteristic depth.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the almonds.
Orange-flower water
Adds a floral aroma that complements the almond flavor.

The step that matters

Pound the almonds very fine. Fine pounding breaks the almond cells so their flavor and fats release into the water. Adding a small amount of water keeps the oils from separating out as a greasy paste, which would leave the syrup thin in flavor and oily.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe 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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