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Pineapple Lemonade

A chilled beverage made with pineapple, lemon juice, sugar syrup, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pineapple Lemonade

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pineapple Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup by combining 1 pound of sugar with 1½ cups of water in a saucepan over medium heat until dissolved.

  2. Pare and grate the pineapple.

Combine and serve

  1. Once the syrup has cooled, mix in the grated pineapple and the juice of 3 lemons.

  2. Dilute the mixture with 2 cups of water for serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

  1. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Syrup + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Sugar
Dissolved into the water to make a sweet syrup that sweetens the whole drink.
Pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavour and aroma, along with juice once grated.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the drink.

The step that matters

Cool the syrup before adding the fruit. Adding the grated pineapple and lemon juice to hot syrup can change their fresh flavour and aroma, so letting the syrup cool first keeps the drink bright and fresh-tasting.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, syrup, pineapple):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup, pineapple. 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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