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 ↓
Lemon Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lemons
Combine the juice and grated rinds of the lemons in a bowl and let it sit overnight.
Make the syrup
Combine the sugar with water in a saucepan to make a thick syrup.
Heat the syrup until the sugar is dissolved.
Allow the syrup to cool.
Add the lemon juice mixture to the cooled syrup and strain.
Bottle the syrup for storage.
Serve
To serve, mix 1 tablespoon of syrup with a glass 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.
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 juice
- Provides the sour, bright acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
- Lemon rinds
- Add aromatic lemon oils that give the syrup its fragrance and flavor.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and, at high concentration, helps preserve it for storage.
The step that matters
Cooling before adding the lemon mixture. Adding the lemon juice to hot syrup can drive off its fresh aroma and dull its flavor. Letting the syrup cool first keeps the citrus bright and helps the mixture stay stable during bottling.
“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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