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 ↓
Marmalade, Orange, Scotch
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Boil the oranges until tender and easily pierced with a pin, about 3 to 4 hours.
Cut the oranges open and remove the seeds.
Separate the pulp from the rind.
Clear off the coarse filmy parts and some of the white inner part of the rind.
Shred the rind finely.
Some of the rind can be pounded and added to the pulp.
Make the marmalade
Clarify the sugar, using 1.5 pounds of sugar for each pound of fruit.
Boil the syrup for 10 minutes.
Add the pulp, juice, and rind to the syrup.
Boil until the marmalade jellies, about 30 to 40 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 + 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
- Oranges
- Supply the pectin, acid and bitter peel that give marmalade its flavour and set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens and, at high concentration, helps the marmalade set into a gel.
The step that matters
Boil until the marmalade jellies. Marmalade sets when enough sugar and pectin are concentrated by boiling. Undercooking leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dark.
“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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