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
Prepare the juice
Dissolve tartaric acid in cold water.
Pour the mixture over the grapes and let stand for 48 hours.
Mash the grapes and strain the juice.
Sweeten and store
To 1 pint of juice, add 3 pints of sugar and let stand until dissolved.
Bottle or store in a jug with a tight cork.
Serve
Serve 2 tablespoons of juice in a tumbler of water, with or without a slice of lemon.
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
What each ingredient does
- Concord grapes
- Provide the juice and the bulk of the flavour and colour.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds tartness that balances the sweetness of the juice.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the juice and helps preserve it in storage.
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.
“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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