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 ↓
Orang-e Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Weigh the fruit before cutting it.
For every pound of fruit, use ¾ pound of sugar.
Remove the peel from the oranges in quarters and boil it in plenty of water until tender.
Drain the water and let the peel cool.
Make the marmalade
Remove the seeds and white skin from the pulp, then place the pulp in a pot with the sugar.
Cook the mixture until it thickens.
Cut the cooled peel into thin shreds and add to the cooked orange mixture, mixing thoroughly.
Cool a small amount in a saucer to check thickness, then pour into jars.
Once cool, cover the jars.
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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Lemon + sugartop 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).
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
- Oranges
- Provide the fruit, peel and pulp that give the marmalade its flavour and body.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, as it cooks, helps it thicken to a spreadable set.
- Lemons
- Add acidity, which brightens the flavour and supports setting.
The step that matters
Checking the set on a cooled saucer. Marmalade thickens as it cools, so judging by how it looks in the hot pot can lead to overcooking. A small cooled sample shows whether the pectin and sugar have reached a spreadable set before jarring.
“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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