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 ↓
Candied Orange Peel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peel
Wipe the orange and remove the peel in quarters.
Scrape off the white pith and cut the peel into thin strips.
Cook the strips in boiling water until tender, then drain.
Candy the peel
Make a syrup by combining the sugar and orange water, then add the orange rind.
Cook slowly until most of the syrup has evaporated.
Drain the rind and roll it in coarse granulated sugar.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the peel and, as it cooks into syrup, coats and preserves the rind.
- Orange peel
- Provides the bitter-citrus flavour and the candied texture once softened and sugared.
The step that matters
Cooking the rind in syrup slowly. Sugar concentration rises as water evaporates, and too much heat can crystallise or scorch the syrup before the rind is evenly candied. Slow cooking lets the sugar penetrate the peel gradually, giving a translucent, tender result.
“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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