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Dessert

Carrot Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from carrots, lemon, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,351 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Carrot Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Cook the carrots until tender, then press through a colander or vegetable press.

  2. Finely chop the lemons and add to the carrot mixture.

Make the marmalade

  1. In a stewpan, combine equal parts sugar and carrot pulp.

  2. Boil the mixture, stirring constantly, until it thickens to a jam-like consistency, about 20 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Carrot + sugartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,211 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

Carrots
Provide the bulk of the pulp, supplying body, natural sweetness and a smooth jam-like texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken and set as the mixture cooks down.
Lemons
Add acidity and aromatic peel oils that brighten the flavour and balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boiling until it thickens. Stirring constantly prevents sugar and pulp from scorching on the bottom of the pan. Cooking until jam-like lets the mixture concentrate and set as it cools.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Kalefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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