Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓
Shadow Lemonade
Ingredients
Directions
Make the juice
Wash the blackberries and let them sit to draw out the juice.
Press the blackberries through a bag to obtain clear juice.
Assemble and serve
Fill each glass halfway with blackberry juice.
Add the juice of half a lemon and fill the glass with ice.
Serve without making the drink too sweet; it is better tart.
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 + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Blackberries
- Provide the main flavor and color, and their juice gives the drink its body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the tart lemon and blackberry flavors.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and keeps the drink tart.
The step that matters
Adding the sugar. Sugar dissolves more easily in warm liquid than cold, and too much sugar masks the tartness that the drink is meant to have.
“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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