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 ↓
Preserved Oranges
Ingredients
Directions
Carve the outsides of the oranges with a knife, avoiding cutting through the rind, and remove a round piece from the stalk end the size of a sixpence.
Place the carved oranges in water.
Boil the oranges in plenty of water until tender enough to pierce easily, then remove and place them in cold water.
Carefully scoop out the pulp from the inside without breaking the oranges, placing the pulp in another water container and changing the water daily for three days.
Drain the water from the oranges, place them in an earthen pan, and pour boiling hot clarified sugar over them to cover well.
Let the oranges sit overnight, then pour off the syrup and boil it again for about ten minutes.
Repeat boiling the syrup every other day for about three times until it thickens but does not candy.
On the last boil, scald the oranges in the syrup, then place them in pans covered with paper dipped in brandy and tie them down until needed.
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
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