Why it works: Grape and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,412 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Grape Juice
Ingredients
Directions
Pick Concord grapes from the stem.
Wash and heat the grapes, stirring constantly until they break.
Pour the mixture into a jelly bag and press slightly to extract the juice.
Add sugar to the juice and cook until it boils.
Pour the hot juice into a bottle, cork it, and seal with paraffin or a mixture of shoemaker's wax and resin.
Serve with shaved ice and a few drops of lemon juice if desired.
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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Grape + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,412 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,490 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
Swap the lemon
The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grape, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Applefits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against grape, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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