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Drink

Strawberry Water

A chilled beverage made by bruising strawberries, adding sugar and lemon juice, mixing with cold water, straining, and refrigerating.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓

Strawberry Water

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bruise the strawberries in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and lemon juice to the strawberries.

  3. Mix in 1 pint of cold water thoroughly.

  4. Strain the mixture through a coarse cloth without squeezing.

  5. Add another pint of cold water and refrigerate.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour, and their juice forms the base of the drink.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps draw juice out of the strawberries as it dissolves.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour and balances the sugar.

The step that matters

Strain without squeezing. Pressing the cloth forces fine pulp and solids through, which clouds the water and can add bitter, grassy notes. Letting juice drip through alone keeps the drink clear and smooth.

“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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