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Cordial, Ginger

A ginger cordial made with lemon essence, ginger tincture, tartaric acid, caramel, cane sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cordial, Ginger

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the distilled water.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool.

Flavour and serve

  1. Add the essence of lemon, tincture of ginger, tartaric acid, and caramel.

  2. Mix well before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Cane sugar
Provides sweetness and body to the cordial.
Tartaric acid
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
Essence of lemon
Contributes bright citrus aroma and flavour.
Tincture of ginger
Contributes the spicy, warm ginger aroma and flavour.
Caramel
Adds a golden-brown colour to the cordial.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to cool. Heat drives off the volatile aroma compounds in lemon and ginger extracts. Letting the sugar syrup cool before adding the flavourings helps keep their fragrance in the finished cordial.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, sugar):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Vanillafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, sugar. 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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