Name: Cough Tea
Ingredients: 2 ounces figs; 2 ounces raisins, stoned; 2 ounces licorice; 1 quart water; a little moss (in a bag); lemon juice to taste

Why it works: Fig and raisin work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cough Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the figs into pieces and stone the raisins.
Boil the figs, raisins, licorice, and moss in a quart of water.
Once boiled, let the mixture cool.
Add lemon juice to taste before serving.

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.

Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together737 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Fig + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together763 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,742 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Raisin + licoricetop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Licorice + lemontop 40% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).