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Lemon Syrup

A syrup made from lemon juice, sugar, water, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lemon Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Roll the lemons under your hand to soften them.

  2. Squeeze out all the juice.

  3. Beat the eggs to a stiff froth.

Make the syrup

  1. In a porcelain-lined kettle, combine the sugar and water.

  2. Mix the beaten eggs with the sugar and water until dissolved.

  3. Place the kettle over heat.

  4. Boil, skimming off any scum that rises to the surface.

  5. Add the lemon juice to the boiling syrup.

  6. Cover the kettle.

  7. Boil gently for 10 minutes.

  8. Remove from heat.

Bottle

  1. Let cool before filling bottles rinsed with alcohol.

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

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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
Provide the juice that gives the syrup its sharp acidity and bright lemon flavor.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and the body that makes the syrup thick.
Eggs
Beaten to a froth and stirred into the syrup as it dissolves.

The step that matters

Boil, skimming off any scum that rises to the surface.. Scum that rises during boiling is made of impurities and foam. Skimming it off keeps the finished syrup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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