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
Shave half the lemons or rub the sugar over them.
Make the lemonade
Squeeze the juice of the lemons into the sugar.
Pour boiling water over the mixture and mix well.
Strain through a jelly bag previously wrung out of scalding water.
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
- Lemons
- Provide the juice and aromatic oils that give the lemonade its sharp, fragrant flavour.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the lemon juice to balance its acidity.
- Water
- Dilutes the juice and sugar into a drinkable liquid.
The step that matters
Dissolving the sugar with boiling water. Sugar dissolves much more readily in hot liquid than cold, so pouring boiling water over the lemon and sugar mixture and mixing well helps it fully dissolve, avoiding a grainy, unevenly sweetened drink.
“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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