Name: Slippery-elm Tea
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon powdered slippery-elm; 1 cup boiling water; 1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional); sugar to taste; ice (optional)

Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Slippery-elm Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Steep

Break the bark into bits.
Pour boiling water over the bark and cover it.
Let it infuse until cold.

Sweeten and serve

Sweeten to taste and add ice if desired.
Add lemon juice for a cold drink.

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.

Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

Powdered slippery elm: Hydrated in hot water, it releases a slippery, thickened mucilage that gives the tea its body.
Lemon juice: Its acidity brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the tea.
Sugar: Adds sweetness, adjusted to taste.

“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.