Why it works: Orange and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Halve the Seville oranges and squeeze out the juice.
Remove the pulp, leaving a thin rind, and shred it into fine slices.
Boil the shredded rind until tender, then place it in cold water.
If the oranges are not ripe, boil the pulp with a little water until very soft, stirring to prevent burning.
Squeeze the pulp through a fine sieve.
Make the marmalade
Mix the juice, water from the pulp, and shredded rind together.
For every pound of mixture, add 1 pint of clarified sugar.
Boil until it reaches the crackled or caramel stage.
Add the other ingredients and boil for 10 minutes over a brisk fire until sufficiently jellied.
Pour into pots and cover.
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.
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange and sugar 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
- Seville oranges
- Provide the bitter rind and pectin-rich pulp that give marmalade its flavour and set.
- Clarified sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, as it concentrates, helps it set and preserves it.
The step that matters
Boiling until jellied. The mixture must reach the setting point, where pectin, sugar and acid combine to gel. Boiling too briefly leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dark. Stirring prevents scorching on the base of the pan.
“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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