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 ↓
To Make Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Choose the largest Seville oranges with clear skins.
Weigh the oranges and an equal amount of loaf sugar.
Quarter the orange skins.
Place the skins in a pot covered with water and boil them.
Divide the oranges into sections.
Scrape out the pulp, removing all seeds.
Prepare a basin of cold water to discard the seeds and skins.
Once the skins are tender, strain them.
Cut the skins into thin slices.
Make the marmalade
Clarify the sugar.
Add the skins and pulp to the clarified sugar, then stir well.
Boil for about 30 minutes.
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
- Their bitter peel adds aroma and their pectin helps the marmalade set.
- Loaf sugar
- Provides sweetness and, with the fruit's pectin and acid, helps the marmalade gel.
The step that matters
Boil for about 30 minutes. Pectin from the skins and pulp only sets when the mixture reaches a high enough sugar concentration and temperature. Boiling too briefly can leave it runny, while boiling too long can dull the flavour and darken the colour.
“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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