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 ↓
Lemon Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Dissolve the sugar in the water over low heat.
Add the citric acid and oil of lemon.
Stir until fully combined and the mixture is clear.
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
- Loaf sugar
- Provides sweetness and the bulk of the syrup, dissolving into the water to form the body of the syrup.
- Citric acid
- Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the syrup.
- Oil of lemon
- Supplies concentrated lemon aroma and flavor to the syrup.
The step that matters
Dissolve the sugar fully over low heat. Gentle heat lets the sugar dissolve completely into the water without scorching. Undissolved crystals or caramelized sugar would leave the syrup grainy or discolored, so the mixture should look clear before finishing.
“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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