Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Cherry Cup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cherry sauce
Press the canned sour cherries through a sieve.
Put the cherry puree over the fire and add sugar to sweeten.
When it boils, add a thickening of corn starch mixed with cold water.
Cook until the mixture is the consistency of cream, then remove from heat and cool.
Serve
Serve in sherbet cups, adding a few drops of lemon juice and a little shaved ice to each cup.
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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Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,927 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,168 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
- Sour cherries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and the puree that forms the base of the sauce.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the cherry puree as it heats, giving it a creamy consistency.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart cherry puree to taste.
The step that matters
Adding the corn starch thickening. Corn starch must be mixed with cold water first and added while the puree is boiling. Starch clumps if added dry or to cold liquid, and it thickens only once heated, so stirring it in properly keeps the sauce smooth.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, corn):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn. 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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