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Cough Syrup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Dandelion and burdock share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cough Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the comfrey, elecampane, liquorice, squills, dandelion, spikenard, sourdock, burdock, sarsaparilla, and sweet anise seed in a vessel.

  2. Cover with 4 cups of water and boil until the strength is extracted.

  3. Strain the mixture and add 1 cup of loaf sugar and 1 quart of Orleans molasses.

  4. Boil all together until thick like syrup.

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. Dandelion + burdocktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Dandelion + sourdocktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sourdock + burdocktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Burdock + anisetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the sourdock

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dandelion, burdock, anise, sugar, molasses):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Sourdockthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dandelion, burdock, anise, sugar, molasses. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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