Why it works: Lemon and barley work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 484 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Lemon Water Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the flavour base
Rub sugar on the clear rinds of the lemons.
Squeeze the juice from the lemons and strain it.
Boil the sugar with a little water to make a thick syrup.
Combine and finish
Add the syrup to the lemon juice and mix in ½ pint of water or barley water.
Sweeten to taste with the syrup.
Add the egg white and jelly.
Chill and serve.
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.
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Lemon + barleytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together484 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + barleytop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together755 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Lemons
- Provide the juice and aromatic oil from the rinds for the main flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the ice and, as syrup, helps keep it smooth and scoopable.
- Egg white
- Adds lightness and a foamy, airy texture to the frozen mixture.
- Jelly
- Adds body and gelling structure to help the water ice hold together.
The step that matters
Sweeten to taste with the syrup. Sugar lowers the freezing point and softens the ice, while too little leaves it hard and sour. Adjust sweetness before chilling, since flavour is harder to correct once frozen.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, barley, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, barley, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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