Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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.— I
Ingredients
Directions
Pare the lemons and place the peel of one in a jug with the juice of both lemons.
Add the sugar and citric acid to the jug.
Pour in enough boiling water to fill a quart jug.
Stir occasionally until the sugar is dissolved.
Dilute with water when serving.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 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
- Citric acid
- Provides sharp sourness that gives the lemonade its tartness.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the sourness of the citric acid and lemon juice.
- Lemons
- Juice supplies acidity and the peel adds aromatic oils for fragrance.
The step that matters
Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Undissolved sugar leaves a grainy texture and uneven sweetness. Sugar dissolves faster in hot liquid, and stirring spreads the dissolved sugar evenly through the jug.
“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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