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 ↓
Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Rub the lemons or oranges with a rough towel.
Cut the fruit lengthwise into quarters.
Remove the seeds.
Slice the fruit thinly.
Weigh the fruit.
Soak the fruit in cold water for 24 hours, using 3 pints of water for each pound of fruit.
Boil the soaked fruit in a clean kettle until tender.
Let the boiled fruit stand for another 24 hours.
Make the marmalade
Weigh the fruit again.
Add 1.5 pounds of sugar for each pound of fruit.
Boil briskly for a few minutes until it forms a jelly.
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 or oranges
- Provide the fruit peel and pulp that form the marmalade's body and bitter flavour.
- Cold water
- Soaks the fruit to soften the peel before boiling.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set into a jelly as it boils.
The step that matters
Boil briskly until it forms a jelly. Sugar and pectin set only when the mixture reaches the gel point. Too little boiling leaves it runny, while overcooking can darken and dull 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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