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 ↓
Lemonade
Ingredients
Directions
Make the lemonade
Squeeze the lemons well using a glass lemon extractor.
Add sugar to the lemon juice.
Cover with boiling water and stir until the sugar dissolves.
When cold, strain through cheesecloth and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Serve
Crush ice until fine and fill glasses half-full with it.
Pour the lemonade over the ice and serve.
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.
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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
- Lemons
- Provide the juice that gives the lemonade its tart, acidic flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart lemon juice and balances its acidity.
- Boiling water
- Dissolves the sugar and dilutes the lemon juice into a drinkable liquid.
The step that matters
Stir until the sugar dissolves. Sugar dissolves much more readily in hot water than in cold juice. If it is not fully dissolved before chilling, the sweetness will be uneven and grainy at the bottom of the drink.
“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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