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Drink

Irish Moss

A thickened milk drink made by soaking Irish moss, boiling with milk, and flavoring with optional cinnamon, sugar, lemon, or vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Irish Moss

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the moss

  1. Wash the Irish moss thoroughly.

  2. Soak the moss in ½ cup of cold water for 3 to 4 hours.

Make the pudding

  1. In a pot, combine the soaked moss and 1 pint of cold milk or a mixture of milk and water.

  2. Boil for a few minutes, then strain through fine muslin.

  3. Set aside to cool.

  4. Flavor with cinnamon, sugar, lemon, or vanilla as desired.

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. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Irish moss + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Irish moss + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Irish moss
Seaweed that releases gelling compounds when simmered, thickening the milk into a soft set pudding.
Milk
Forms the body of the pudding and adds richness and a creamy mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil for a few minutes, then strain through fine muslin. The moss must be boiled long enough to dissolve its gelling compounds into the liquid, or the pudding will not set. Straining through fine muslin removes the moss fragments so the result is smooth.

“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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