Name: Lemonade
Ingredients: 1 quart boiling water; rinds of 6 lemons; juice of 8 lemons; ¾ pound sugar; 1 quart boiling water; calf's-foot jelly (optional)

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 ↓

Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

Pour 1 quart of boiling water over the rinds of 6 lemons and let it steep for 3-4 hours.
Add the juice of 8 lemons and ¾ pound of sugar; simmer and skim the mixture.
Add another quart of boiling water.
Optionally, run it through a jelly bag or mix in a glass of calf's-foot jelly for richness.

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 rinds: Steeping in hot water releases aromatic oils from the peel, giving the drink its fragrance.
Lemon juice: Provides the sharp acidity that gives the lemonade its characteristic tartness.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the acidity 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.