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 Svrltp
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Make a syrup with the sugar.
Once the syrup is cool, strain the lemon juice into it.
Squeeze oil from the grated lemon rind into the syrup to taste.
Serve
Mix 1 tablespoon of the syrup in a goblet of water for a refreshing drink.
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
- Sweetens the syrup and gives it body as the base of the drink.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity and bright citrus flavor to the syrup.
- Grated lemon rind
- Supplies aromatic oils that give the syrup its lemon fragrance.
The step that matters
Let the syrup cool before adding the lemon juice. Heat can dull the fresh, bright flavor of lemon juice and weaken its aroma, so cooling the syrup first helps keep the citrus flavor lively.
“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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