Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lemons
Scrub and wash the lemons.
Place them in a saucepan, cover with cold water, and boil for 1 hour or until tender, changing the water twice with boiling water.
Remove the lemons and pour the cooking water into a basin.
Cut the lemons into quarters, remove the center pith and seeds, and discard the white pith from the rind.
Cut the rind into fine chips.
Weigh the pulp and chips, then for every pound, add 1 pint of the reserved water and 2 lbs of sugar.
Make the marmalade
In a preserving pan, combine the sugar and water, boil for about 15 minutes while stirring and skimming off the scum.
Allow the syrup to cool slightly before adding the pulp and chips.
Boil gently for 1 hour or until it jellies.
Pour into warm, dry jars and cover immediately.
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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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon and sugar 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
- Lemons
- Their rind supplies the bitter chips and their pulp supplies pectin and tartness for setting.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, as it concentrates, helps the mixture thicken and set.
- Water
- Extracts flavor and softens the lemons, and forms the syrup the chips and pulp cook in.
The step that matters
Allow the syrup to cool slightly before adding the pulp and chips. Adding the fruit to a very hot syrup can cause violent spattering and uneven cooking, so a brief cooling makes the mixture safer to handle and more evenly combined.
“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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