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 ↓
Strawberry Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mixture
Mash and press the strawberries through a fine sieve to extract the juice.
Mix the strawberry juice with the juice of one lemon, one pound of sugar, and four quarts of water.
Freeze
Freeze the mixture until solid.
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
- Strawberries
- Provide the main flavour and colour, and the juice that forms the base of the ice.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice softer and less rock-hard.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity that brightens the strawberry flavour and balances the sweetness.
The step that matters
Freeze the mixture until solid. Sugar lowers the freezing point of water, so the mixture freezes slowly and unevenly. Judging solidity by feel alone can leave pockets of unfrozen liquid or an icy, grainy texture.
“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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