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 ↓
Portable Lemonade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Squeeze the juice from the lemons.
Boil the pulp in 1 pint of water.
Combine the boiled pulp with the lemon juice.
Sweeten and cook
Add 1 pound of sugar to the mixture.
Boil for 10 minutes.
Store and serve
Seal in jars or bottles.
Use 1 tablespoon of the mixture in a glass of water.
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
- Lemons
- Supply the juice and acidity that give the drink its sharp, tart flavour.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the lemon's sourness.
“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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