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Pineapple Lemonade

A chilled drink made with pineapple, lemon juice, sugar syrup, and ice water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Pineapple Lemonade

Why it works: Pineapple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pineapple Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil water and sugar together for 10 minutes to make syrup.

  2. Add grated pineapple and lemon juice to the syrup.

Strain and serve

  1. Cool the mixture, then strain it.

  2. Add ice-water to the strained mixture and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 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

Sugar
Dissolves into the water to form a syrup that sweetens the drink and adds body.
Grated pineapple
Supplies the main fruit flavour and some pulp to the lemonade.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Ice-water
Chills the concentrated syrup and dilutes it to a drinkable strength.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the ice-water. Adding ice-water to a hot syrup melts the ice too quickly and can leave the drink diluted and lukewarm. Cooling first keeps the flavour balanced and the drink properly chilled.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. 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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