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
Select fresh, plump, heavy fruit. Wash, discard tips and stems, and slice into pieces about ⅛ inch thick and 1 to 2 inches long.
Put the fruit into a granite preserving kettle and add the water.
Set in a cool place for 24 hours.
Cook the peel
Divide the mixture into two kettles, place over a hot fire, and boil briskly until the peel is perfectly tender.
Set aside for 24 hours.
Make the marmalade
Measure the fruit, return it to the two kettles, bring to a boiling point, and add an equal measure of sugar.
Boil briskly for about 2 minutes or until it drops thickly from a spoon like jelly.
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 + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
What each ingredient does
- Oranges
- Peel and pulp supply the bitter aroma, pectin and body of the marmalade.
- Lemons
- Add acidity that brightens flavour and helps the marmalade set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens and, with boiling, thickens the fruit into a spoonable jelly-like set.
The step that matters
Boil until the peel is perfectly tender. Citrus peel is tough and must soften fully before sugar is added, because sugar hardens the peel and stops it from becoming tender later. Undercooked peel leaves the marmalade chewy.
“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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