Name: Orange Brandy
Ingredients: 1 dozen Seville oranges; 1 gallon best pale French brandy; 4 lbs bruised sugar candy

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 ↓

Orange Brandy

Ingredients

1 dozen Seville oranges
1 gallon best pale French brandy
4 lbs bruised sugar candy

Directions

Steep the oranges

Place the oranges and brandy in an airtight earthen jar.
Turn the top layer of oranges every 3 to 4 days.
When the oranges have hardened after about a month, the brandy is ready to bottle.

Finish and bottle

Add the sugar after removing the oranges.
Bottle the brandy in pint-sized containers.
Optionally, prick the oranges with a fork before adding them to the brandy.

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.

Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,706 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar 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: Their peel supplies the bitter aroma and citrus oils that flavour the brandy.
Pale french brandy: Acts as the solvent that draws flavour and aroma out of the oranges over time.
Sugar candy: Adds sweetness that balances the bitterness of the orange peel.