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Drink

Iceland Moss

A drink made by boiling Iceland moss in water or milk, sweetened with powdered loaf sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Iceland Moss

Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Iceland Moss

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the moss

  1. Wash the Iceland moss well in cold water.

  2. Soak the moss in a basin of cold water overnight.

  3. Squeeze the moss dry in a cloth.

Make the drink

  1. Put the moss in a saucepan with 1 quart of cold water.

  2. Boil for 1 hour, stirring frequently.

  3. Strain through a sieve into a basin and sweeten with loaf sugar.

  4. Serve with either wine or milk, according to taste.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Iceland moss
Its gums thicken the liquid, giving the drink a smooth, jelly-like body.
Powdered loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the mild, slightly bitter flavour of the moss.

The step that matters

Soaking the moss overnight. Soaking and washing remove bitter compounds and dirt from the moss. Skipping or shortening this soak can leave the drink harsh and gritty.

“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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