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 the lemons
Scald the lemons.
Extract the juice from the lemons.
Cut the lemons in half.
Squeeze the juice out of the cut lemons.
Make the liquid
Add the lemon skins to 1 pint of the scalding water.
Squeeze the lemons again into the same pint of water.
Strain the mixture through a sieve.
Combine the strained mixture with the lemon juice.
Cook the syrup
In a preserving kettle, add 2 pounds of loaf sugar for each pint of liquid.
Boil until scum rises.
Remove from heat.
Skim off the scum.
Bottle and store
Once cool, bottle the syrup.
Store in a cool place.
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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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 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
- Juice supplies acidity and tang, while the skins add aromatic oils and flavor.
- Loaf sugar
- Provides sweetness and body, and at this high concentration helps preserve the syrup.
The step that matters
Skim off the scum. Scum rises to the surface as the syrup boils. Removing it keeps the finished syrup clear and free of impurities that could cloud it or spoil it in storage.
“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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