Why it works: Orange and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Orange Preserve
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the oranges
Pare half the oranges and cut the peel into shreds.
Grate the yellow rind from the remaining oranges, remove the white inner skin, and discard it.
Separate all the oranges into quarters, remove seeds, and chop into small pieces.
Drain off all the juice without pressing the fruit and pour it over the sugar.
If the oranges are not very juicy, add a little water for the syrup.
Cook the preserve
Place the mixture over the fire and boil for 5 to 6 minutes, then skim.
Add the shredded peel and cook for 10 minutes.
Then add the grated peel and chopped pulp, and boil for 20 minutes.
Jar and seal
Put into jars and seal when cold.
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 + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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, pectin-bearing pulp and peel that give the preserve its body and bitter aroma.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the preserve and, at high concentration, helps it set and keep.
The step that matters
Boiling the peel and pulp. Peel and pulp must simmer long enough for the sugar syrup to reach a concentration where the preserve sets on cooling. Stop too early and it stays runny; boil too hard or too long and the sugar can caramelise and darken the 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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