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 ↓
An Excellent Method of Making Punch
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Boil 1 gallon of water until reduced by a gallon, then skim it.
Remove from heat and pour the boiling water over the quartered lemons.
Place the remaining water in a tub with the cowslip-pips and let it sit overnight.
Ferment
Combine the liquor and lemons with the yeast and sweetbriar, stirring well.
Let the mixture work for 3 to 4 days.
Strain the mixture and transfer it to a cask.
Age and bottle
Allow it to stand for 6 months before bottling.
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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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
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide that drive the working of the punch.
- Lemons
- Provide acidity and aroma, with juice and peel flavouring the liquor.
The step that matters
Let the mixture work for 3 to 4 days. Yeast needs time to convert sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Rushing this stage, or straining and casking too early, leaves the fermentation incomplete and the flavour underdeveloped.
“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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