Why it works: Banana and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,102 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Banana Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Peel and slice the bananas thinly.
In a wide-mouthed bottle, layer banana slices and sugar until filled, using equal amounts of sugar and bananas.
Cook and strain
Place the bottle in a pot of cold water and bring to a boil.
Once boiling, remove the bottle and stir the contents thoroughly for several minutes.
Allow to cool, then press through a fine sieve or coarse linen cloth.
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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Banana + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,102 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bananas
- Provide the main flavour and body of the syrup as they break down with the sugar.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and draws moisture out of the banana slices to form a liquid.
The step that matters
Stirring after boiling. Stirring the contents thoroughly helps the sugar and banana juices mix evenly and dissolve, so the syrup extracts consistently rather than settling into uneven layers.
“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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