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Soup

Orange Citron

A syrup made from orange peel soaked in salt and water, sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 Citron

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the peel

  1. Soak the orange peel in salt and water for 24 hours.

  2. Rinse the peel in fresh water for another 24 hours.

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup by combining 1 pound of sugar with 1 pound of the soaked peel and enough water to cover.

  2. Boil the syrup until it becomes nearly transparent.

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.

  1. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Orange peel
Supplies the citrus aroma and flavor that the syrup carries.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and thickens the water into a syrup as it dissolves and concentrates.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until nearly transparent. Sugar dissolves fully and the water evaporates as the syrup boils, so the syrup thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while boiling too long can darken or crystallize it.

“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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