Name: Orange Marmalade
Ingredients: 7 pounds pear or plum tomatoes; 7 pounds sugar; 6 oranges, cut into small pieces, seeds removed; 3 lemons, cut into small pieces, seeds removed

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

7 pounds pear or plum tomatoes
7 pounds sugar
6 oranges, cut into small pieces, seeds removed
3 lemons, cut into small pieces, seeds removed

Directions

Mash the tomatoes enough to break the skin.
Combine the mashed tomatoes, sugar, oranges, and lemons in a large pot.
Cook the mixture over low heat for four hours, stirring occasionally.

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).
Pear + orangetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together323 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together942 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,079 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

Pear or plum tomatoes: Provide the bulk and body of the marmalade as they break down during cooking.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and, as water evaporates, helps the mixture thicken.
Oranges: Contribute bright flavour, aroma, and natural acidity.
Lemons: Add acidity and pectin, which help the mixture set.

The step that matters

Low, slow cooking with stirring. As water evaporates over four hours, the sugar and fruit concentrate and can stick and scorch on the base of the pot. Low heat and occasional stirring spread the heat evenly and keep the marmalade from burning.

Swap the pear

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

Limefits better
Vanillafits better
Blueberryfits better
Pearthe original

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