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 Brandy
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pare the oranges very thin.
Steep
Steep the oranges in the brandy in a closed bottle for 12 days.
Make the syrup
Boil the sugar in 3 quarts of water for 1 hour and skim it.
Combine and strain
When cold, mix the sugar water with the brandy and squeeze the oranges into it.
Strain through a filtering bag and add water to fill up any deficiency.
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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Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,706 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and lemon 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
- Brandy
- Acts as the solvent that extracts oils and flavour from the orange peel.
- Seville oranges
- Provide the bitter aromatic oils from the peel and the juice for acidity.
- Loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness and rounds out the bitterness of the orange and brandy.
The step that matters
Steep the oranges in a closed bottle. Alcohol extracts aroma and oils from the peel over time, so the bottle must be sealed to keep the brandy from evaporating and the flavour concentrated during the full 12 days.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, orange, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, orange, sugar. 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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