Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Pare the rind of the oranges into thin strips.
Quarter the oranges and place them in a pan, covering with water.
Squeeze the oranges until too hot to handle, then press the pulp through a fine sieve.
Add the rind strips to the juice.
Cook and pot
For each pint of juice, add 1 pound of sugar and the grated rind of 1 lemon.
Cook until it jellies, then pot as usual.
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 + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 bitter peel, juice and pectin-rich pulp that give marmalade its flavour and set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set into a firm gel as it cooks.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens flavour and supports gel formation.
The step that matters
Cook until it jellies. Sugar, acid and pectin must reach the right concentration to set. Undercooked marmalade stays runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dull in flavour.
“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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