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 ↓
Lemon Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the lemon juice until clear.
Add 2 pounds of white sugar for each pint of juice.
Add 1 pint of water to the lemon pulp and strain it with the juice.
Boil for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.
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
- Lemon juice
- Provides the sharp, acidic flavour that defines the syrup.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and thickens it as the mixture boils down.
The step that matters
Boil for 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Sugar syrup can scorch and stick to the bottom of the pan when heated for a while. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the sugar from burning, which would give the syrup a bitter taste.
“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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