Why it works: Sugar and strawberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,060 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Strawberry Acid
Ingredients
Directions
Make the acid
Dissolve citric acid in water.
Pour the solution over strawberries and let it stand for 24 hours.
Drain the mixture.
Sweeten and bottle
For every pint of juice, add 1 pound of white sugar.
Boil for 5 minutes.
Let the mixture stand for 3 days before bottling.
Serve
To serve, mix 2 tablespoons of the strawberry acid with a glass of ice 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.
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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Sugar + strawberrytop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,060 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Citric acid
- Provides sharp acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour.
- Ripe strawberries
- Supply the main fruit flavour and juice for the acid.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the juice and balances the sourness of the acid.
“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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