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 ↓
Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Place Seville oranges in a tub and cover with boiling water.
Quarter the oranges with a knife and separate the pulp from the rind.
Pass the rind through a cutting machine and boil the chips in a steam tub until tender.
Strain the boiled rind through a sieve.
Make the marmalade
Boil the pulp in a jam pan with a little water until mashed, then strain to remove the pips.
Mix the pulp and chips together and boil with 14 oz of sugar for each pound of fruit until set.
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 + 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
- Seville oranges
- Provide the bitter peel and pectin-rich pulp that give marmalade its flavor and set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, with heat and acid, helps the mixture gel when it sets.
The step that matters
Boil until set. Marmalade sets when pectin, sugar and acid reach the right concentration under heat. Undercooking leaves it runny, while overcooking can darken and stiffen it.
“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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