Why it works: Pine and sugar work together. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 309 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Pare the rinds off the pines and remove any dark specks from the flesh.
Grate the pines on a fine grater or slice them thin and cut into dice.
Pound the pines in a stone or marble mortar until pulpy.
Cook and thicken
Weigh the pines, then heat and boil gently for 10 minutes.
Stir in 14 ounces of sugar for every pound of fruit gradually.
Boil until the mixture thickens and becomes transparent, about 15 minutes for small quantities.
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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Pine + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together309 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- English pines
- Provides the fruit pulp, flavour and bulk that the marmalade is built from.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, concentrated by boiling, helps the mixture thicken and set.
The step that matters
Stirring in the sugar gradually and boiling until thickened. Adding sugar slowly to hot pulp lets it dissolve evenly without scorching. Boiling until the mixture thickens and turns clear concentrates the sugar enough to set. Stopping too early leaves it runny.
“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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