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Drink

Turkish Sherbet

A sweet, clear syrup made with sugar, water, lemon juice, and veal stock, served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Turkish Sherbet

Why it works: Lemon and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,580 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Turkish Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar with water to create a clear syrup.

  2. Skim the syrup carefully and pour it into a bowl.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cold, stir in the strained lemon juice and veal stock.

  2. Serve in glasses.

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.

  1. Lemon + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + vealtop 43% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,001 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

Loaf sugar
Dissolves into the water to form a syrup that gives the drink its sweetness and body.
Strained lemon juice
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Veal stock
Adds savory depth and a fuller body to the otherwise sweet-sour liquid.

The step that matters

Cool the syrup before adding the lemon juice and stock. Acid speeds the breakdown of sucrose into glucose and fructose when heat is present, so adding lemon juice to hot syrup changes its sweetness and flavour unevenly. Letting the syrup cool first keeps the blend balanced and clear.

“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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