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To Make Orange Juice to Keep

A preserved orange juice made by adding sugar and optional brandy, then bottling and storing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,706 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

To Make Orange Juice to Keep

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Squeeze the oranges into a pan.

  2. Strain the juice through a coarse sieve, then through a fine sieve.

  3. Measure the juice; for every pint, add 1 pound of fine loaf sugar.

  4. Cover and let it stand overnight.

  5. Remove the scum and stir well.

Bottle and store

  1. Pour into dry pint bottles, adding 1 tablespoon of brandy to each.

  2. Seal the bottles with leather over the cork.

  3. Store in a dry place; it will last for two years.

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. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Oranges
Provide the juice, which supplies the main flavour and acidity of the preserve.
Fine loaf sugar
Sweetens the juice and helps preserve it by binding water and inhibiting microbial growth.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that further helps keep the juice from spoiling and adds aroma.

The step that matters

Remove the scum and stir well. Scum that forms while the juice stands contains impurities and microbes that can spoil the preserve if left in. Stirring redistributes the dissolved sugar so the juice keeps evenly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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