Name: Orange Marmalade
Ingredients: 10 oranges; 2 lemons (if sour oranges are not available); sugar (equal weight to the prepared fruit)

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

10 oranges
2 lemons (if sour oranges are not available)
sugar (equal weight to the prepared fruit)

Directions

Thinly pare half the oranges and cover the rind with cold water.
Scald the water, drain, and repeat this process three times until the rind is tender.
Shred the peel very fine and set aside.
Grate the yellow rind from the remaining oranges and set aside.
Remove the white skin from all the oranges, cut into small pieces, and remove the seeds.
Press the pieces slightly to free the juice and bring it to a boil.
Gradually add the heated sugar, boil, and skim the mixture.
Add the grated peel and boil for ten minutes.
Incorporate the fruit and shredded peel, and cook for an additional fifteen minutes.

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.

Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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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Orange Marmalade