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 ↓
Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the oranges
Cut up the oranges and remove the seeds.
Place the oranges in a bowl covered with boiling water.
Remove the pulp from the oranges.
Chop the pulp roughly.
Finely chop the orange skins.
Soak and boil
Combine the pulp and skins in a stone jar.
Add 6 cups of water to the jar.
Soak for 12 hours.
Boil for 30 minutes.
Soak for another 12 hours.
Finish the marmalade
Strain the juice from the seeds through a cloth.
Add the strained juice to the pulp.
Boil the mixture for 30 minutes with 4 cups of sugar.
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
- Oranges
- Provide the pulp, skins and juice that form the marmalade's body and bitter-sweet flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken and set as it boils.
“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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