Name: Marmalade of Green Mangoes
Ingredients: full-sized green mangoes; lime water; salt; sugar

Why it works: Mango and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Marmalade of Green Mangoes

Ingredients

full-sized green mangoes
lime water
salt
sugar

Directions

Peel the green mangoes and cut them into large pieces.
Soak the pieces in lime water for 30 minutes.
Wash the mango pieces with fresh water and let them sit after smearing with salt.
Boil the mango pieces in water for a few minutes.
Transfer the boiled mango pieces to a hot sugar syrup and apply mild heat.
Remove from heat when the syrup thickens and sticks to the mango pieces.

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.

Mango + limetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together506 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Mango + sugartop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together561 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lime + sugartop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,332 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).