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 until tender, changing the water twice with boiling water.
Remove the lemons, 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 the finest possible chips.
Make the marmalade
Weigh the pulp and chips, and for every pound, add 1 pint of the reserved water and 2 lb of sugar.
Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan, and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring constantly.
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
- Supply the bitter rind and pulp that give marmalade its characteristic flavor and natural pectin.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set to a thick, spreadable texture.
- Water
- Carries the cooking liquid from the lemons and dissolves the sugar into a syrup.
The step that matters
Stirring the sugar and water mixture. Stirring constantly keeps the sugar from scorching on the bottom of the pan while it dissolves and cooks, which would give a burnt flavor.
“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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