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
Scoop out the pulp of Seville oranges into a fine sieve and press the juice into a pan below.
Boil the skins in water until tender, then remove the white part and cut the skins into small strips.
Make the marmalade
Add the strips to the juice, then add an equal weight of clarified sugar for each pound of fruit.
Boil the mixture for about 30 minutes until it reaches the feather stage.
Stir well, then boil again until it hangs to the spoon, known as the crack stage.
Pot and seal
Pour the marmalade into pots, cover with paper dipped in brandy, and tie a bladder over it.
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 juice and pectin-rich pulp and bitter peel that give marmalade its set and flavour.
- Clarified sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, as it concentrates, helps it set and keep.
The step that matters
Boiling to the setting stages. Marmalade sets only when enough sugar and water have evaporated and the pectin in the fruit can form a gel. Undercooking leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and sugary, so the feather and crack stages are used to judge the set.
“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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