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
Wash the lemon and reserve a thin slice for serving.
Strain the juice from the lemon into a glass.
Add sugar and boiling water to the lemon juice and stir until dissolved.
Chill the mixture and serve with the reserved lemon slice as a garnish.
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
- Lemon
- Provides the sour acidity and the bright lemon aroma that define the drink.
- Sugar
- Balances the lemon's acidity with sweetness.
The step that matters
Stir the sugar into the hot water until fully dissolved. Sugar dissolves much more readily in hot water than in cold liquid. If the sugar is not fully dissolved before chilling, grains can remain gritty and the sweetness will be uneven across the glass.
“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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