Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓
Cream Nectar
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
In a preserving pan, combine sugar, water, and tartaric acid.
Stir over heat until the sugar melts.
Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and add to the mixture.
Stir until very hot, but do not boil.
Remove from heat and cool.
Finish and bottle
Strain through fine muslin, add lemon essence, and bottle.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 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
- Provides sweetness and the bulk of the syrup.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
- Egg whites
- Whipped and heated, they coagulate and help clarify the syrup as it is strained.
The step that matters
Stir until very hot, but do not boil. Heating the egg white mixture until it is very hot lets the proteins coagulate and trap impurities for straining. Boiling can make the foam collapse and cloud the syrup, so the mixture should be heated gently and stopped before it boils.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Datesfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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