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 ↓
Iced Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Make the tea
Boil 3 cups of water.
Steep tea leaves in the boiling water for 3 minutes.
Strain the tea to remove the leaves.
Add sugar to taste and stir until dissolved.
Cool and serve
Cool the tea quickly.
Pour into glasses with small pieces of ice and a slice of lemon.
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 + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Tea leaves (in the method)
- Provide the main flavour and aroma of the drink as they steep in hot water.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the tea's natural bitterness.
The step that matters
Cool the tea quickly. Hot tea poured over ice melts it too fast and dilutes the drink. Cooling the tea first keeps the flavour strong and the ice intact.
“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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