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 the fruit
Rub the oranges and lemons with a rough towel.
Cut the fruit into quarters, remove the seeds, and slice thinly.
Weigh the fruit and soak it in cold water for 24 hours, using 3 pints of water for each pound of fruit.
Cook and set
Transfer the fruit to a clean brass pan and boil until tender.
Set aside in a basin for another 24 hours.
Add sugar and jelly
Weigh the fruit again, then add 1.5 pounds of sugar for each pound of fruit.
Boil briskly for a few minutes until it jellies.
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
- Supply the bulk of the fruit, along with their peel and pectin for setting.
- Lemons
- Add acidity and extra pectin to help the marmalade set.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, with the fruit's pectin and acid, helps it gel.
The step that matters
Boiling briskly until it jellies. Sugar and pectin only set when the mixture reaches the gel point. Boiling briskly concentrates the syrup quickly, while overcooking can make the marmalade dark and stiff. Testing for a set is the safest check.
“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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