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 ↓
Lemonade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and steep
Pare the rind from the lemon thinly and cut the lemon into slices.
Put the peel and sliced lemon into a jug with the sugar.
Pour the boiling water over the mixture.
Cover the jug closely and let it cool.
Strain
Strain or pour off the liquid.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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
- Lemon
- Provides the sour acidity and, from the peel, the fragrant aroma of the drink.
- White sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the lemon's sourness.
The step that matters
Covering the jug while it steeps. Pouring boiling water over the peel and covering the jug closely keeps the volatile aromatic oils from the rind in the liquid rather than letting them escape as steam. The sugar also dissolves more readily in hot water.
“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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