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 ↓
Lemon Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Combine sugar, citric acid, and boiling water in a bowl.
Stir until the sugar and acid are dissolved.
Strain the mixture into bottles.
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
- White sugar
- Provides sweetness and most of the body of the syrup.
- Citric acid
- Adds sharp, tart sourness that balances the sweetness.
- Essence of lemon
- Adds concentrated lemon aroma and flavour.
The step that matters
Stir until the sugar and acid are dissolved. Undissolved sugar or citric acid leaves gritty crystals and uneven sourness. Dissolving them fully in hot water gives a smooth, evenly flavoured syrup before it is strained into bottles.
“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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