Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Portable Ginger Beer
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the powdered sugar and carbonate of soda together.
In separate glasses, dissolve the tartaric acid, ginger powder, and essence of lemon in the cold spring water.
Combine the contents of each glass and drink immediately.
Adjust the amount of ginger to taste, using the finest powder available.
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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Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,154 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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
- Carbonate of soda
- Reacts with the tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide, which makes the drink fizz.
- Tartaric acid
- Provides the sharp acidity and reacts with the soda to produce the fizz.
- Powdered lump sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the drink.
- Ginger powder
- Gives the drink its spicy, warming flavour.
The step that matters
Combine the contents of each glass and drink immediately. Carbon dioxide from the carbonate of soda and tartaric acid escapes quickly once the two mixtures meet, so the fizz is lost if the drink is left to stand.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, ginger):
- Lemonthe original
- Orangefits about as well
- Limefits less well
- Vanillafits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger. 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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