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Lemon Whey

A lemon-infused beverage made with water, figs, lemon peel, sliced lemon, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Whey

Why it works: Lemon and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 763 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Lemon Whey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Boil 1 quart of water in an enamelled pan.

  2. Add 2 halved dried figs and boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Add the thick peel of 1 lemon and ½ lemon sliced; boil for 2 minutes.

  4. Pour the mixture into a jug and cover with paper until cold.

Strain and sweeten

  1. Strain through a sieve and stir in 1 teaspoon of sugar.

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.

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.

  1. Lemon + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Fig + sugartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Water
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavours of the figs and lemon.
Dried figs
Release their sweetness and body into the hot water during boiling.
Lemon peel
Adds aromatic oils and a fresh citrus flavour to the drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the lemon and fig flavours.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, 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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