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Orgeat

A sweet almond syrup made from almonds, orange flower water, rose water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Orgeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond base

  1. Pound the Jordan and bitter almonds very fine in a marble mortar with the orange flower water.

  2. Mix in the rose water and spring water, then strain through a fine sieve until the almonds are dry.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the clarified sugar or water until it reaches a crack stage.

  2. Add the almond mixture to the boiling sugar and boil for one minute.

  3. Let it cool, then bottle and cork tightly.

  4. Use one tablespoonful per tumbler of water, shaking before use.

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.

  1. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Orange + rosetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together876 recipes

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

  3. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Jordan almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and body of the syrup once pounded and strained.
Bitter almonds
Add a concentrated, sharper almond aroma that rounds out the sweet almonds.
Clarified sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, once boiled, gives it body and keeps it stable for bottling.

The step that matters

Boil the sugar to a crack stage. Boiling sugar to a higher concentration reduces the water available to spoil the syrup, so it keeps well after bottling. Undercooked sugar leaves a thinner, less stable syrup.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, rose, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, rose, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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