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 ↓
Stewed Cherries
Ingredients
Directions
Stew the cherries
Place the cherries in a pan with sugar and lemon juice.
Heat over medium heat, shaking the pan occasionally.
Simmer for about 2 minutes.
Reduce and serve
Remove the cherries with a slotted spoon and let them cool in a basin.
Reduce the syrup until it reaches a proper consistency.
Pour the syrup over the cooled cherries.
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
- Kentish cherries
- Main fruit that supplies the flavour and the juice that becomes the syrup.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and draws juice out of the cherries to form the syrup.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the fruit flavour and balances the sugar.
The step that matters
Reducing the syrup to a proper consistency. As water evaporates, the syrup concentrates and thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while reducing too far makes it overly stiff or sticky once it cools.
“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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