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
Combine lemon juice and lump sugar in a pot.
Boil the mixture until clear, stirring constantly.
Add water gradually to prevent the syrup from becoming too thick.
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 acidity and bright flavour that defines the syrup.
- Lump sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and, once dissolved and boiled, gives it body and preserving strength.
- Water
- Thins the syrup as it cools, keeping it from setting too thick.
The step that matters
Boiling until clear while stirring constantly. Constant stirring helps the sugar dissolve evenly and keeps it from scorching on the bottom of the pot. Boiling too hard or too long can thicken the syrup excessively and darken its flavour, so watch it closely.
“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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