Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Ginger Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Make the ginger syrup
In a saucepan, combine sugar, water, and sliced ginger.
Boil the mixture until the sugar dissolves and the ginger flavor infuses.
Remove from heat and let it cool.
Strain the mixture to remove ginger pieces.
Freeze
Add the fruit juice and mix well.
Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.
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 + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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
- Dissolves into the water to form a syrup that sweetens the ice and keeps it soft.
- Ginger
- Infuses the syrup with its aromatic, spicy flavor, then is strained out.
- Fruit juice
- Adds flavor and liquid that freezes into the finished ice.
The step that matters
Boil until the sugar dissolves. Sugar must fully dissolve in the water before cooling; undissolved crystals can make the finished ice grainy and uneven in sweetness.
“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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