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Rhubarb and Orange Jam

A jam made by cooking sliced oranges and rhubarb with sugar and lemon juice until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Rhubarb and Orange Jam

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the oranges very thin and cook them in a little water.

  2. Add the rhubarb and cook until tender.

  3. Stir in the sugar and lemon juice, then cook until thick.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Orange + rhubarbtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together299 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Lemon + rhubarbtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together546 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  5. Sugar + rhubarbtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

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

Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it dissolves and concentrates, helps it thicken and set.
Oranges
Add bitter aromatic peel and pectin that contribute to the jam's flavor and setting.
Rhubarb
Provides tart flavor and moisture that cook down into the jam's body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and supports pectin set.

The step that matters

Cooking until thick. Sugar and pectin only gel when enough water has evaporated and the sugar concentration is high enough. Stopping too early leaves a runny jam, while overcooking can make it stiff or scorch the sugar.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Peppermintfits about as well
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, orange. 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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