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Lemon Cordial

A sweet lemon liqueur made by mixing lemon essence, spirit, sugar, water, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the essence of lemon and proof spirit, then agitate well.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in water and add to the mixture.

  3. Mix well and fine with eggs.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Spirit + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lemon + spirittop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together256 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Essence of lemon
Provides the main lemon aroma and flavour of the liqueur.
Proof spirit
Acts as the alcoholic base that carries the flavour and preserves the liquid.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the alcohol and lemon oil.
Water
Dilutes the spirit to the desired strength and dissolves the sugar.
Eggs
Used in fining, where they help clarify the liqueur by binding and carrying away cloudy particles.

The step that matters

Fine with eggs. Fining with eggs clarifies the liqueur by drawing out suspended particles that cause haze. Mixing too vigorously or skipping the settling time leaves the liqueur cloudy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spirit, sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spirit, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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