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
Select good Florida oranges and use 2 lemons for every dozen oranges.
Boil the orange peels in water until tender.
Shred the peels into small pieces or pound them in a mortar.
Make and store
Take the pulp of the oranges and the lemon juice, then add 1.5 times their weight in sugar.
Cook the mixture for 20 minutes.
Pour into glasses and cover tightly.
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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Orange + lemontop 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
- Oranges
- Provide the peel for bitterness and the pulp and juice for the marmalade's body and flavour.
- Lemons
- Add acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the marmalade set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, as it thickens, helps it set into a spreadable gel.
The step that matters
Cook the mixture for 20 minutes. Pectin in the peel and pulp only sets when sugar and acid are present at high enough concentration and temperature. Undercooking leaves the marmalade runny, while overcooking can make it dark and bitter.
“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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