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A Refreshing Drink in Fevers

A herbal infusion of sage, balm, sorrel, and lemon, sweetened with sugar, served hot for fever relief.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

A Refreshing Drink in Fevers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the sage, balm, and sorrel in a stone jug.

  2. Peel and slice the lemon, adding it along with a small piece of the rind.

  3. Pour in the boiling water, sweeten to taste, and cover the jug tightly.

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. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sage + sorreltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sorrel + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sorrel + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together294 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Dried sage
Adds a resinous, earthy aroma that gives the infusion its main flavour.
Fresh balm
Contributes a light, lemony aroma to the infusion.
Fresh sorrel
Adds a sharp, tangy acidity to the infusion.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and citrus aroma, with extra oils from the rind.

The step that matters

Cover the jug tightly. Covering keeps the steam and volatile aromatic compounds in the liquid, so the infusion keeps its aroma and flavour rather than losing them to the air.

Swap the sorrel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, lemon, sugar):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Sorrelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, lemon, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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