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 ↓
Cold Lemonade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lemons
Select ripe lemons.
Remove the rind.
Slice the lemons or use a lemon squeezer to extract the juice.
Make the lemonade
Add a small amount of sugar, or none for some patients.
Dilute with pure cold water or ice-water to suit your taste.
Wash the lemons.
Slice the lemons thin.
Remove the seeds.
Add sugar.
Fill with ice-water.
Stir well.
Serve
Serve after a few minutes.
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
- Lemons
- Provide the tart acidity and citrus aroma that define the drink.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the sourness of the lemon juice.
“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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