Name: Flaxseed Lemonade
Ingredients: 1 pint boiling water; 2 tablespoons whole flaxseed; 2 lemons (juiced); 2 tablespoons honey

Why it works: Flaxseed and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 151 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Flaxseed Lemonade

Ingredients

1 pint boiling water
2 tablespoons whole flaxseed
2 lemons (juiced)
2 tablespoons honey

Directions

Pour boiling water over flaxseed. Let it cool.
Strain the mixture.
Add the juice of the lemons and honey. Stir well 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.

Flaxseed + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together151 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Flaxseed + honeytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together124 recipes

Shared aroma: hexan-1-ol (green, grassy).
Lemon + honeytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,707 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole flaxseed: Releases a mucilaginous gel into the water, giving the drink a slightly thickened, silky body.
Lemons: Provide the acidity and bright flavour that balance the honey's sweetness.
Honey: Adds sweetness that offsets the sharpness of the lemon juice.