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 ↓
To Make Lemon Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Cut the lemons in half and squeeze out all the juice.
Strain the juice through a towel.
Make the syrup
Combine the lemon juice with 1 pound of loaf sugar.
Stir until the sugar is fully dissolved.
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
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the lemon juice and forms the syrup's body once dissolved.
- Fresh lemons
- Supply the juice, giving the syrup its tart acidity and bright lemon flavour.
The step that matters
Stir until the sugar is fully dissolved. Undissolved sugar crystals can remain in the syrup and later recrystallize, making it grainy. Stirring until no crystals remain gives a smooth, clear syrup.
“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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