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 lemons
Boil 1½ pints of water in a kettle.
Wash the lemons and peel them thinly, avoiding the white pith.
Remove all the pith from the lemons.
Slice the lemons thinly, remove the seeds, and place the slices and half the rind in a jug.
Make the lemonade
Add about 1 ounce of loaf sugar to taste.
Pour the boiling water over the lemons in the jug.
Cover the jug and let it cool.
Once cold, strain the lemonade into another jug.
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
- Lemons
- Provide the sharp acidity and the aromatic oils from the peel that flavour the drink.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the drink, balancing the sourness of the lemon juice.
The step that matters
Remove all the pith from the lemons. White pith is bitter, so leaving any of it in the peel or slices will make the lemonade taste harsh. Thin peeling keeps the fragrant zest oils without it.
“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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