Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Steep the lemons
Steep the lemon slices in water for 24 hours.
Cook the marmalade
Boil the lemons in the same water for 2 hours, or until tender.
Add the sugar and boil slowly for 30 minutes.
Bottle the marmalade.
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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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Lemons
- Provide the bitter peel and pulp that give marmalade its characteristic tart flavour.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set into a thick, spreadable texture.
The step that matters
Boil slowly after adding the sugar. Sugar must dissolve fully before the mixture is boiled hard, so the pectin from the lemons can set the marmalade without scorching or crystallising.
“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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