Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓
Turkish Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Make the paste
Soak the gelatine in the orange juice for 15 minutes.
Dissolve the sugar in the water, then add the soaked gelatine and boil for 20 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in the juice of the lemon and chopped candied cherries.
Pour the mixture into a pan to cool and harden.
Finish
Once firm, cut into cubes and roll in powdered sugar.
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 + orangetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Granulated gelatine
- Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly once cooled.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the paste and helps give it a soft, chewy body as it sets.
- Orange juice
- Supplies the main flavour and liquid that the gelatine sets in.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the paste.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar and gelatine for 20 minutes. Gelatine needs to be fully dissolved before the mixture is poured to set. Boiling for a long time also thickens the sugar syrup, so the final set depends on getting the mixture hot enough and not letting it run too thin or too stiff.
“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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