Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓
Lemonade
Ingredients
Directions
Rasp two lemons with lumps of sugar or grate them if using granulated sugar.
Combine the lemon rind with water and let it steep for 1-2 hours or for 5 minutes if rasping.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the drink and balances the sourness of the lemon juice.
- Lemon juice
- Supplies the sour, tart flavour that defines the lemonade.
- Water
- Dilutes the juice and sugar into a drinkable volume and carries the flavour.
- Lemons
- Their rind supplies aromatic oils, and the fruit adds tartness.
The step that matters
Steeping the rind. Rasping the rind into the sugar releases its aromatic lemon oils, which then infuse the water. Steeping too long can draw bitterness from the rind, so keep to the stated time.
“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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