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 ↓
Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Wash the oranges and peel the rind very thinly, cutting it into strips about 1 inch long.
Tie the strips firmly in a piece of muslin.
Remove most of the pith from the oranges and cut each orange into quarters.
Put the fruit and rind into a pan and cover with cold water.
Bring to a boil and simmer until tender, about 2 hours.
Strain through a cloth.
Make the marmalade
For each pint of liquid, add 1 pound of sugar, and for each pound of strips, add 1 pound of sugar.
Combine the sugar, juice, and strips in a preserving pan.
Bring to a boil and skim well.
Boil briskly for 40 minutes.
Test for firmness.
Pour into pots.
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
What each ingredient does
- Seville oranges
- Supply the bitter peel and pectin-rich pulp that give marmalade its flavour and set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, when boiled, helps the mixture thicken and set.
The step that matters
Boil briskly for 40 minutes. Pectin sets only when enough sugar and acid are concentrated by boiling off water. Too little boiling leaves the marmalade runny, while overcooking can darken and dull the flavour. Testing for firmness shows whether it has reached the set point.
“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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