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Cordial, Lime Juice

A lime cordial made with sugar, glucose, lime juice, water, lemon oil, and optional salicylic acid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lime and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,289 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cordial, Lime Juice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the crystallized sugar in the soft water using gentle heat.

Flavour and rest

  1. Add the glucose, salicylic acid, essential oils, and lime juice.

  2. Shake well and set aside for a few hours.

Finish

  1. Filter the mixture 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. Lime + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Lime + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together937 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lime + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together236 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Crystallized sugar
Provides sweetness and body, and makes the cordial syrupy.
Lime juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavour.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallisation, keeping the cordial smooth and syrupy.
Tincture of lemon
Adds concentrated lemon aroma and flavour.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Corianderfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lime, lemon, orange. 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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