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 ↓
Receipts for Lemonade
Ingredients
Directions
Make the lemonade
In a pitcher, combine the lemon juice and sugar.
Stir until the sugar is dissolved.
Add the water and mix well.
Serve
Serve over ice and garnish with lemon slices.
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
- Fresh lemon juice
- Provides the sour, acidic flavour that defines lemonade.
- Sugar
- Balances the lemon's acidity with sweetness.
The step that matters
Dissolve the sugar fully before adding the water. Sugar dissolves much more readily in concentrated lemon juice than in cold diluted liquid. Stirring until it dissolves first keeps the sweetness even and prevents grainy sugar settling at the bottom of the pitcher.
“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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