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To Preserve Oranges

A method for preserving Seville oranges in a sugar syrup and storing them in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,706 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

To Preserve Oranges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oranges

  1. Cut a piece off the top of each orange, about the size of a shilling.

  2. Carefully remove the inside of the oranges without cutting too close.

  3. Place the oranges in a pot with salt and water; let them soak overnight.

  4. Boil the oranges in a large, well-tinned saucepan for three hours, wrapped in linen cloths.

Make the syrup

  1. In another pot, boil 2 pounds of sugar with 3 cups of water until thick.

  2. Add 3 or 4 boiled oranges to the syrup and cook for 10 minutes, turning them with a spoon until clear.

  3. Transfer the oranges to separate jars and boil the syrup again, skimming it well.

Pot and seal

  1. Once cooled, pour the syrup over the oranges and cover with brandy papers, tying them securely with leather or a bladder.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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 fruit whose peel and pulp are candied and preserved in the syrup.
Lump sugar
Forms a thick syrup that preserves the fruit and gives it sweetness.

The step that matters

Boiling the oranges in linen-wrapped batches. Boiling for the full three hours softens the bitter peel so it becomes tender. Cooking too briefly leaves the peel tough, and the sugar syrup cannot penetrate evenly.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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