Why it works: Raspberry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓
Drink in Fever
Ingredients
Directions
Dilute raspberry vinegar with water.
Chop up apple or rhubarb and pour boiling water over it.
Add lemon and sugar to taste.
Allow the mixture to cool before serving.
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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Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,109 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Raspberry + appletop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together282 recipes
Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Raspberry + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together303 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raspberry, vinegar, apple, sugar):
- Peachfits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Apricotfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, vinegar, apple, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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