Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Ginger Water Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the ginger
Pound the preserved ginger in a mortar.
Add the water and a small amount of raw ginger.
Make the water ice
Prepare 1 quart of lemon water ice.
Mix the pounded ginger into the lemon water ice thoroughly.
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.
Freeze the mixture until solid.
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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Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,154 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Preserved ginger
- Supplies the main ginger flavour and its sweetness once pounded into the ice.
- Lemon water ice
- Forms the base of the dessert and carries the ginger flavour through freezing.
- Raw ginger
- Adds a sharper, fresher ginger bite alongside the preserved ginger.
The step that matters
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve. Straining removes pounded ginger fibres and lumps so the frozen ice is smooth rather than gritty or stringy.
“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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