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Pineapple Lemonade

A chilled beverage 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: Lemon and pineapple 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 the sugar in water until it forms a thin syrup, removing any scum.

Prepare the fruit and juice

  1. Squeeze the juice from the lemons and remove the seeds.

  2. Peel the pineapple, remove the eyes, and grate it into a large bowl.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the lemon juice and clear syrup to the grated pineapple and let it cool for 2 hours.

  2. Stir in the ice water, strain the 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. Lemon + pineappletop 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
Sweetens the drink and, dissolved into the syrup, balances the lemon's acidity.
Lemons
Supply the sharp acidity and bright flavour that define the lemonade.
Pineapple
Adds fruity sweetness and aroma; grating releases more of its juice and flavour.

The step that matters

Removing the scum from the syrup. Scum that forms while sugar boils can cloud the syrup and leave off flavours. Skimming it off keeps the drink clear and clean-tasting.

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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