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 ↓
Linseed Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Steep
Combine linseed, sugar, liquorice root, and lemon juice in a bowl.
Pour boiling water over the mixture.
Let it stand in a warm place for 4 hours.
Strain and serve
Strain the liquid before serving.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Whole linseed
- Releases a slippery, mucilaginous gel into the water, giving the tea a light body.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
- White sugar
- Adds sweetness that rounds out the tea's flavour.
- Liquorice root
- Contributes a sweet, aromatic flavour that infuses into the water.
The step that matters
Standing time in a warm place. The linseed's gel-forming compounds and the liquorice flavour leach out slowly into the hot water. Stopping early leaves the tea thin and weakly flavoured, so the full 4 hours matters.
“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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