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Syrup of Orgeat

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Syrup of Orgeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond liquor

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds.

  2. Pound the blanched almonds very fine in a mortar.

  3. Gradually add the water and grated lemon rind, mixing well.

  4. Let the mixture steep for 30 minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture through a fine napkin, squeezing out all the liquid and leaving the almonds dry.

Make the syrup

  1. Clarify the sugar and boil it nearly to barley sugar consistency.

  2. Add the almond liquor and orange flower water to the boiling sugar.

  3. Let the mixture boil for 3 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture through a lawn sieve.

  5. Bottle the syrup and cork it tightly when cold.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar 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 almond flavour and body of the syrup.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, sharper almond aroma that balances the sweetness.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, boiled down, gives it thickness and body.
Orange flower water
Adds a floral aroma to the finished syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar to barley sugar consistency. Sugar boiled this far is very concentrated, so it sets thick when cooled. Adding the almond liquor while it is boiling must be done carefully, because the sugar can spatter and the syrup can scorch or crystallise if overheated.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chickpeafits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, orange. 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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