Why it works: Orange and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Oranges in Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Peel the oranges, removing all the white pith.
Make the syrup
Boil the rinds in ½ cup of cold water for 10 minutes.
Strain the water and add 6 oz of loaf sugar.
Boil until it becomes a thick syrup.
Finish and serve
Drop the orange sections into the syrup without breaking the skins.
Cook for a few minutes and serve cold.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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 fruit and their aromatic oils, which flavour the syrup and the dish.
- Loaf sugar
- Dissolves into the boiled water to make a thick, sweet syrup that coats the fruit.
- Cold water
- Serves as the liquid that extracts flavour from the rinds and dissolves the sugar into syrup.
The step that matters
Drop the orange sections into the syrup without breaking the skins. Torn skins release bitter pith and cloudy juice into the syrup, and damaged sections soften unevenly. Keeping the skins intact holds the segments together and keeps the syrup clear.
“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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