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
Cut the Seville oranges in half and squeeze out the juice through a sieve into a basin.
Boil the rinds in plenty of water until soft enough to run a straw through them.
Drain the rinds and steep them in cold water for three hours, then drain again.
Scrape out all the white pith and shred the rinds into straw-like filaments.
Make and pot the marmalade
Boil the sugar to the feather degree, then add the peels and juice.
Boil for twenty minutes over a brisk fire, stirring continuously.
Pour into pots and cover when cold.
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
- Supply the bitter peel and juice that give marmalade its characteristic sharp flavour and set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set into a spreadable gel when boiled.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar and peel for twenty minutes. Boiling must be brisk and continuous while stirring, because the mixture needs to reach setting point. Stirring prevents sugar and peel from 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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