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 Maemalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Boil the whole oranges and lemons in water for 5 hours.
Scoop out the insides, removing the seeds.
Cut the peel into thin slices.
Make the marmalade
For every pound of pulp and peel, add 2 cups of water and 2 pounds of sugar.
Boil for 20 minutes.
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
- Seville oranges
- Provide the pectin and sharp, bitter flavour that give marmalade its character and set.
- Lemons
- Add acidity and extra pectin, helping the marmalade gel and balancing the sweetness.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, with heat and acid, helps it set into a spread.
The step that matters
Boil for 20 minutes. Pectin and acid only gel properly once the mixture reaches the right concentration. Too little boiling leaves the marmalade runny, while overcooking darkens its colour and flavour.
“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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