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Drink

Flax-seed Lemonade

A beverage made by boiling flax-seed with water, straining into sugar and gum arabic, then adding lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓

Flax-seed Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil flax-seed and cold water together until the liquid becomes very sticky.

  2. Strain the hot mixture over the pulverized sugar and gum arabic, then stir until completely dissolved.

  3. Squeeze the juice of a lemon into the mixture.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon 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

Flax-seed
Its mucilage thickens the water into a sticky, body-giving liquid.
Gum arabic
Adds thickness and helps keep the drink smooth and stable.
Pulverized sugar
Provides sweetness and dissolves into the mixture to balance the tartness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour that cuts the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boiling the flax-seed and water until sticky. Flax-seed releases its mucilage slowly during boiling, which thickens the liquid. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while overcooking can make it gluey. Straining while hot keeps the mucilage flowing through the strainer.

“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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