Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
To Make Lemonade a Third Way
Ingredients
Directions
Pare the rinds of the lemons very thin and place them in a pan with the sugar and pure water that is not too hot.
Let it stand for a while.
Squeeze the juice of the lemons into the mixture.
Add the orange flower water and strain it until clear.
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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Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Lemons
- Provide the juice for sourness and the rind for citrus oil and aroma.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the drink and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
- Orange flower water
- Adds a floral aroma that complements the lemon flavour.
The step that matters
Pare the rinds very thin. The white pith under the peel is bitter. Paring the rind thinly takes off the fragrant oil-rich zest while leaving most of the bitter pith behind, so the lemonade tastes bright rather than bitter.
“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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