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Drink

Orange-water Ice

A chilled beverage made from orange rind, sugar, orange juice, lemon juice, water, clarified sugar, and flavored syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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-water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavour

  1. Rub the rind of the oranges with the sugar until the yellow part is removed.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in a little warm syrup.

Mix and strain

  1. Strain the mixture and stir in the orange and lemon juice, water, clarified sugar, and flavored syrup.

  2. Mix thoroughly and strain again.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture in the usual way.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and lemon 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

Orange juice
Provides the main citrus flavour and acidity that defines the ice.
Clarified sugar
Sweetens the ice and lowers its freezing point so it stays softer when frozen.
Lemon juice
Adds extra acidity that brightens the orange flavour.
Orange rind
Contributes aromatic oils from the peel, adding fragrance to the ice.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture thoroughly. Straining removes rind fragments and pulp that would make the frozen ice gritty or bitter. Mixing well before the second strain keeps the sugar and juice evenly distributed, so the ice freezes smoothly and tastes consistent.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, syrup):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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