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 Straws
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peel
Soak orange skins in lukewarm water for at least 1 hour.
Scrape out all the soft pulp from the skins and cut into narrow strips about ¼ inch wide.
Boil the strips in clear water until very soft and almost transparent, then drain in a colander.
Candy and dry
Make a syrup by dissolving ½ cup granulated sugar in enough boiling water.
Cook a few strips at a time in the syrup for about 5 minutes until coated.
Roll the cooked strips in granulated sugar and place on a plate to dry.
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 + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 skins
- Provide the flavourful peel that becomes the chewy, candied strips.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the strips and, once cooked, forms a coating that gives a crisp, sugary surface.
The step that matters
Boiling the strips until very soft. Boiling softens the bitter peel and draws out its harsh flavour. If the strips are under-boiled they stay tough and bitter, and the syrup cannot penetrate them evenly.
“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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