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Drink

Herb Juice

A beverage made by crushing herbs and vegetables, mixing the juice with broth, and optionally adding lime syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Endive and sorrel share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 60 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Herb Juice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the juice

  1. Combine the herbs and vegetables in a mortar and pound them into a fine paste.

  2. Press out the juice from the paste.

Serve

  1. Mix 4 to 5 ounces of the juice with 1 cup of veal or chicken broth.

  2. Add a tablespoon of lime syrup if desired.

  3. Drink this mixture before breakfast.

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.

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. Endive + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Watercress + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chervil + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Watercress + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Endive + watercresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Endive
Adds bitter, leafy flavor and body to the juice.
Watercress
Contributes sharp, peppery flavor and fresh aroma.
Lettuce
Adds mild leafy bulk and moisture to the juice.
Chervil
Contributes delicate, anise-like aroma.
Sorrel
Adds tart, acidic flavor.
White beet
Adds earthy sweetness and color to the juice.

Swap the lime

The recipe marks lime as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (endive, watercress, lettuce, chervil, sorrel, veal, syrup):

  1. Limethe original
  2. Lemonfits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against endive, watercress, lettuce, chervil, sorrel, veal, syrup. 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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