Name: Orange Gravy, for Wild Fowl
Ingredients: ½ pint rich brown gravy (or espagnole); ½ the rind of an orange, pared thin; 1 small strip of lemon rind; 1 teaspoon sugar; ¼ pint port or claret; juice of ½ lemon; 1 tablespoon orange juice; cayenne pepper to taste

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 Gravy, for Wild Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

Boil the brown gravy with the orange rind, lemon rind, and sugar for about 10 minutes.
Strain the mixture.
Add the port or claret, lemon juice, and orange juice.
Season with cayenne pepper.

Serve

Serve hot.

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.

Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Orange + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,402 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

Brown gravy: Forms the savoury base of the sauce, giving body and a rich meaty flavour.
Orange rind: Adds aromatic citrus oils that flavour the sauce as it simmers.
Port or claret: Adds wine acidity and depth, rounding out the sweetness and richness of the gravy.
Lemon juice: Brightens the sauce with acidity that balances the sugar and richness.
Sugar: Adds a touch of sweetness to balance the acidity and savouriness.