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 ↓
Lemon Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
In a preserving kettle, combine the sugar, citric acid, tartaric acid, and Epsom salts.
Pour the boiling water over the mixture and add the juice and grated rind of 4 lemons.
Stir until fully dissolved and let it cool completely.
Finish and bottle
Once cooled, stir in the well-beaten whites of 2 eggs and the juice of 2 additional lemons.
Strain the mixture through muslin and bottle it.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 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
- White sugar
- Provides the sweetness and bulk that makes up most of the syrup.
- Citric acid
- Adds sharp acidity that gives the syrup its tart lemon flavour.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds a second sharp acid that boosts the tartness of the syrup.
- Lemons
- Supply the juice for tartness and the grated rind for aroma.
- Eggs
- Egg whites are beaten in after cooling to help clarify the syrup as it is strained.
The step that matters
Stir in the egg whites after the syrup has cooled. Adding the beaten whites to hot syrup would cook them into solid strands instead of letting them mix in evenly. Cooling first lets the whites disperse so they can later bind impurities for straining.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- 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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