Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rind
Boil the rind of the lemon in 1 pint of cold water for 30 minutes.
Drain the water and chop the rind very fine.
Remove the seeds from the lemon pulp and add it to the chopped rind along with 1 cup of fresh water.
Cook the marmalade
Cook gently over low heat until the rind is very soft, about 1 hour.
Add 1 cup of sugar and cook for an additional 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.
Skim off only the fine yellow froth that forms on the surface.
Serve and store
Once cool, transfer the marmalade to a glass dish for serving.
For longer storage, boil down until thick and store in tumblers with brandied paper over the top.
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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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Lemon
- Provides the rind, which becomes the bitter, aromatic body of the marmalade, and the pulp for juice and pectin.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, as it thickens with cooking, helps it set and keeps it preserved.
The step that matters
Stirring while the sugar cooks. Sugar is added near the end and the mixture is thick, so it can scorch on the bottom of the pan. Stirring occasionally spreads heat evenly and prevents burning, which would give a bitter, dark 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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