Why it works: Orange and red currant work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓
Oranges Filled with Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the oranges
Cut the top off each orange, about the size of a quarter.
Carefully remove the pulp with a teaspoon handle and place it in cold water.
Make the jelly
Press the juice from the pulp, strain it, and combine with isinglass in a saucepan.
Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly, and boil for 4 to 5 minutes.
Color half of the jelly with red currant or cranberry jelly.
Fill and serve
Drain and wipe the orange rinds, then fill them with alternating strips of the two colored jellies.
Once completely cold, cut the filled oranges into quarters with a sharp knife.
Arrange the quarters tastefully in a glass dish.
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 + red curranttop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together124 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Oranges
- Their juice flavors the jelly and their rinds form the edible containers.
- Isinglass
- Fish-derived gelatin that sets the strained juice into a firm jelly.
- Red currant or cranberry jelly
- Adds color and a tart fruit flavor to half of the jelly.
The step that matters
Boil the jelly for the full time while stirring constantly. Isinglass must be fully dissolved and heated to set properly; stirring prevents scorching and sticking, and too little heat or time can leave the jelly too soft to hold its strips and shape when cut.
“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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