Why it works: Bitter orange and sugar work together. They rank in the top 41% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14 recipes. The science ↓
Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Wash the oranges and dry them.
Grate off any discolored parts and cut the rind in half.
Loosen the rind with a spoon and remove it entirely.
Remove the core and seeds, leaving the juice and pulp.
Place the skins in a saucepan with cold water and cover tightly.
Boil for several hours until tender enough to pierce with a pin.
Drain the water and scoop out the soft part from the hot skins, leaving them thin.
Cut the skins into thin strips half an inch long.
Cook the marmalade
Clarify and boil the sugar until it reaches a high candy stage.
Add the strips to the sugar, then add the juice and pulp after ten minutes, and boil all together.
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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Bitter orange + sugartop 41% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14 recipes
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bitter oranges
- Provide the peel for texture and the juice and pulp for pectin and tartness.
- Fine loaf sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, when boiled, thickens it to a spreadable set.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar to a high candy stage. Sugar concentration must be high enough to set the marmalade on cooling. Boiling the sugar and fruit together for too short a time leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it hard or sticky.
“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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