Name: Lemon Squash
Ingredients: 1 lemon; ½ cup soda or seltzer water; 2 teaspoons castor sugar

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 Squash

Ingredients

1 lemon
½ cup soda or seltzer water
2 teaspoons castor sugar

Directions

Squeeze the juice of the lemon into a large tumbler, avoiding the seeds.
Pour the soda or seltzer water over the lemon juice.
Stir in the castor sugar and serve immediately.
For a refreshing touch, add a small piece of ice in hot weather.

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.

Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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: Provides the sour acidity and fresh aroma that define the drink.
Castor sugar: Sweetens the drink and balances the lemon's acidity.
Soda or seltzer water: Adds carbonation, giving the drink its fizz and lightness.

“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.