Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓
Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Weigh equal weight of fine loaf sugar and Seville oranges, and add 1 pint of water for every dozen oranges.
Peel the oranges carefully, removing a little of the white pith.
Score the skin across, and take it off in quarters.
Boil these quarters in a muslin bag in water until they are quite soft, and they can be pierced easily with the head of a pin.
Boil the rinds in water for 2 hours, changing the water three times to remove bitterness.
Cut the boiled quarters into chips about 1 inch long, as thin as possible.
If there is a great deal of white stringy pulp, remove it before cutting the rind into chips.
Split open the oranges, scrape out the best part of the pulp, with the juice, rejecting the white pith and pips.
Break the pulp into small pieces, remove all the pips, and cut the boiled rind into chips.
Make the marmalade
Make a syrup with the sugar and water; boil it until clear.
In boiling the syrup, clear it carefully from scum before the oranges are added to it.
Add the pulp and chips to the syrup, with the juice and grated rind of 2 lemons to every dozen oranges, which improves the marmalade.
Boil all together from 20 minutes to 1/2 hour, removing all the scum as it rises.
Pot and seal
Pour the mixture into pots, and when cold, cover the tops with bladders or tissue-paper brushed over on both sides with the white of an egg.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 2 of 3 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 2 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Orange | 1 medium (131g) | 62 |
| Lemon | juice of 1 lemon (48ml) | 12 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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. See the original page.
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 + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Seville oranges
- Provide the bitter peel and pulp that give marmalade its characteristic flavour and pectin.
- Fine loaf sugar (in the method)
- Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set into a firm, preserved spread.
- Lemons
- Add acidity and extra pectin to help the marmalade set and balance sweetness.
The step that matters
Clear the syrup of scum before adding the fruit. Scum left in the syrup mixes into the marmalade and cloudies it. Skimming the syrup until clear gives a bright, clean-tasting result.
“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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