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
Prepare the lemon
Grate the rind of 6 lemons and mix it with the juice of 12 lemons.
Let the mixture stand overnight.
Make the syrup
In a pot, combine 6 pounds of white sugar with water to make a thick syrup.
Once the syrup is cool, strain the lemon juice mixture into it.
Squeeze the grated rind to extract oil to taste.
Bottle
Bottle the syrup and securely cork it for future use.
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 sharp acidity and the main bright lemon flavour.
- Grated lemon rind
- Adds aroma and flavour from the oil in the peel.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and gives it a thick, syrupy body.
The step that matters
Let the syrup cool before straining. Heat can dull the bright aroma and fresh flavour of lemon juice and peel oils, so the syrup should be cool before the lemon mixture goes in.
“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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