Name: A Purgative Apozem
Ingredients: 2 ounces senna leaves; 1 ounce Glauber's salt; 1 teaspoon anise seed; 1 teaspoon coriander seed; 1 ounce chervil leaves; 1 ounce burnet leaves; 1 sliced lemon; 2 pounds cold water

Why it works: Coriander and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,498 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Combine senna leaves, Glauber's salt, anise seed, coriander seed, chervil leaves, burnet leaves, and sliced lemon in an earthen bowl.
Add cold water and let the mixture macerate for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.
Strain through a towel with light pressure, then filter the liquid.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Coriander + lemontop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,498 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Anise + coriandertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together86 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Chervil + lemontop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together358 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Anise + lemontop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together91 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Coriander + cherviltop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together34 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the chervil

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

Cuminbetter flavor fit
Dillbetter flavor fit
Parsleybetter flavor fit
Chervilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against anise, coriander, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).