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Nourishing Lemonade

A chilled lemonade made with boiling water, sugar, lemon juice, rind, sherry, and beaten egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,273 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Nourishing Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lemonade

  1. Combine boiling water, sugar, lemon juice, lemon rind, and sherry in a jug.

  2. Let the mixture stand for a few minutes to extract flavor.

  3. Beat the egg very well and strain it.

  4. Slowly add the sherry mixture to the beaten egg while stirring.

  5. Strain the mixture again and allow it to cool.

Store

  1. If bottled, it keeps for 3 days.

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. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Egg
Adds body and a silky, slightly thickened texture to the drink.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon
Provides the sour, bright acidity and aroma that define the lemonade.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a warm, wine-like flavor.

The step that matters

Slowly add the sherry mixture to the beaten egg while stirring. Pouring hot liquid into egg too quickly can scramble the egg proteins, leaving cooked specks. Adding it slowly while stirring gently warms the egg so it blends smoothly into the drink.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, sherry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, sherry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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