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Dessert

Jellied Oranges

A preserved orange dessert made by boiling oranges, cooking them in a sugar syrup, and setting with isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Jellied Oranges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Boil the small oranges in water until easily pierced with a straw.

  2. Cut the oranges into quarters.

Make the jelly

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar with water to make a clear syrup.

  2. Add the fruit to the syrup and cook over low heat until the fruit is clear.

  3. Remove the oranges and stir in the isinglass.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil again.

  5. Strain the jelly over the oranges.

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 + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Small oranges
Provide the fruit, flavour and the main body of the jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps the syrup become clear and thick.
Isinglass
Gelling agent that sets the liquid into a firm jelly.

The step that matters

Cook the fruit over low heat until clear. Gentle heat lets the sugar syrup penetrate the fruit slowly, so it turns clear and holds its shape. High heat can break the fruit apart and make the syrup cloudy.

“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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