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Drink

Flaxseed Lemonade

A beverage made by steeping flaxseed in boiling water, then adding lemon juice, gum arabic, and sweetener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

Directions

Make the flaxseed base

  1. Combine flaxseed and boiling water in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture stand until it thickens.

  3. Strain the thickened mixture into a new bowl.

Finish the lemonade

  1. Add lemon juice and powdered gum arabic.

  2. Sweeten 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.

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. Flaxseed + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together151 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole flaxseed
Releases a soluble gel-forming mucilage into the water, thickening the drink and giving it body.
Lemon juice
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetener.
Powdered gum arabic
Helps stabilize the drink and keep it smooth by discouraging separation.
Sweetener
Adds sweetness to balance the lemon's acidity.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand until it thickens. Flaxseed mucilage leaches out slowly into hot water and thickens as it sits. Straining too early leaves the drink thin and watery, so wait until the mixture has visibly thickened before straining.

“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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