Why it works: Flaxseed and licorice work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 23 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓
Flaxseed Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Infuse
Combine flaxseed and pounded licorice root in a heatproof vessel.
Pour boiling water over the mixture.
Place the vessel near a fire for 4 hours.
Strain
Strain the mixture through a linen or cotton cloth.
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.
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Flaxseed + licoricetop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together23 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flaxseed
- Releases mucilage into the water, giving the tea a thick, slippery body.
- Licorice root
- Adds sweetness and a distinct aromatic flavor to the tea.
The step that matters
Steeping for the full 4 hours. Flaxseed mucilage and the flavor of licorice root dissolve slowly into hot water. Steeping for the full time, while keeping the vessel warm near the fire, lets enough of these compounds leave the solids to give a noticeably thick, flavorful tea.
“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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