Why it works: Mint and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Mint Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil water and sugar for 5 minutes.
Prepare the mint
Remove leaves from mint.
Wash mint leaves.
Chop mint finely.
Pound chopped mint to a pulp.
Make and freeze the ice
Work the mint pulp into the hot syrup.
Cool the mixture.
Strain the mixture.
Add lemon juice.
Freeze the mixture.
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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Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,998 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + minttop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,592 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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 mixture and keeps the frozen ice softer and less rock-hard.
- Mint
- Provides the main aroma and flavor, released by crushing the leaves.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the mint flavor and balances the sweetness.
- Water
- Forms the base liquid that freezes into the body of the ice.
The step that matters
Work the mint pulp into the hot syrup. Heat helps draw the aromatic oils out of the crushed mint into the syrup, so the flavor carries through freezing. Straining afterward removes the pulp so the ice is smooth.
Swap the mint
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Gingerfits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Mintthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. 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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