Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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 ↓
Lemonade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the syrup
Dissolve the sugar in the water and allow to cool.
Make the concentrate
In a mortar, triturate the citric acid, adding the lemon oil gradually and rubbing well.
Add a small quantity of the sugar solution to the acid mixture, then gradually add the rest, stirring until fully dissolved.
Serve
To serve, mix three tablespoons of the lemonade concentrate with half a pint of water.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon and sugar 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
- Cane sugar
- Provides sweetness and body to the finished drink.
- Citric acid
- Supplies the sour, tart flavour that balances the sweetness.
- Oil of lemon
- Adds the concentrated lemon aroma and flavour.
The step that matters
Adding the lemon oil to the citric acid. Citric acid is a dry powder and oil does not mix with it easily. Adding the oil slowly while rubbing well spreads it evenly through the powder, so the flavour is not patchy or greasy in the finished drink.
“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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