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Orange Marmalade

A preserve made from orange peel, pulp, and sugar, optionally flavored with lemon juice.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Wash and peel the oranges thoroughly.

  2. Cut the rind into small fine pieces with scissors.

  3. Cover the rind with cold water.

  4. Let stand in a cool place overnight.

Cook the marmalade

  1. Shred the pulp of the oranges, removing all seeds and skin.

  2. Drain the water from the rind.

  3. Cover with fresh water.

  4. Cook until tender.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Add the pulp and 1 cup of sugar for each cup of orange pulp.

  7. Cook until clear, stirring frequently.

  8. If desired, add the juice of 2 or more lemons.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Oranges
Peel and pulp supply the bitter rind, body and most of the marmalade's flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken and set as it cooks.
Lemons
Add extra acidity and brightness; optional.

The step that matters

Cook until clear, stirring frequently. Sugar sticks and scorches on the bottom of the pan if left unstirred, which gives a burnt taste. Stirring keeps the sugar dissolved and the heat even while the mixture thickens.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Pineapplefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar. 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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