Name: A Good Drink for the Lungs
Ingredients: 2 cups boiling water; a few pieces of Irish moss; juice of 1 lemon; sweetener to taste; optional flavorings (wine, vanilla, or nutmeg)

Why it works: Irish moss and lemon work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 61 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

A Good Drink for the Lungs

Ingredients

2 cups boiling water
a few pieces of Irish moss
juice of 1 lemon
sweetener to taste
optional flavorings (wine, vanilla, or nutmeg)

Directions

Wash the Irish moss thoroughly.
Place the moss in a pitcher and pour boiling water over it.
Keep the mixture at boiling point for 2 hours without boiling.
Strain the mixture and squeeze in the lemon juice.
Sweeten to taste and add optional flavorings if 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.

Irish moss + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together61 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,157 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Irish moss + winetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).