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Orgeat Syrup

A syrup made from sweet and bitter almonds, water, sugar, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Orgeat Syrup

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 Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Blanch and peel

  1. Boil sweet and bitter almonds in water until skins peel off easily.

  2. Transfer almonds to cold water, then remove skins.

Pound and strain

  1. Place almonds in a clean marble mortar and pound with lemon juice.

  2. Gradually add ½ pint of spring water while pounding until smooth.

  3. Mix the almond paste with another ½ pint of water and strain.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body, richness and nutty flavor of the syrup.
Bitter almonds
Add a concentrated almond aroma that gives the syrup its characteristic flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the almond flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps keep the almond paste fresh while pounding.

The step that matters

Gradually adding water while pounding. Almonds release oils and proteins slowly when crushed. Adding water in small amounts while pounding breaks the paste into a smooth, stable emulsion instead of a grainy or oily mass that strains poorly.

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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