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 ↓
Iced Okanges
Ingredients
Directions
Remove the skin and pulp from the oranges, separating them into four parts without cutting.
Pass a thread through the strong filaments at the center of each division and tie it to form a ring for hanging.
Make small S-shaped hooks from iron wire.
Melt sugar in a pan.
Dip each quarter of the orange into the melted sugar one by one.
Hang the sugar-coated orange quarters on a rod using the iron hooks quickly to prevent the sugar from burning.
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
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