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From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,993 recipes mention both. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil water, wine, lemon peel, and sugar together.

  2. Mix a small quantity of the powder with a little cold water until smooth.

  3. Stir the smooth mixture into the boiling liquid.

  4. Boil for a few minutes until thickened.

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.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Wine + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,993 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together53,530 recipes

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

  3. Wine + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together8,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Lemon and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 53,530 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, sugar):

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Applebetter flavor fit
  3. Grapebetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

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