Name: Flaxseed Tea
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons whole flaxseed; 1 pint boiling water; 1 lemon, cut up; 2 tablespoons sugar

Why it works: Flaxseed and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 151 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Flaxseed Tea

Ingredients

2 tablespoons whole flaxseed
1 pint boiling water
1 lemon, cut up
2 tablespoons sugar

Directions

Boil 2 tablespoons of whole flaxseed in 1 pint of boiling water for 15 minutes.
Place the cut lemon and 2 tablespoons of sugar in a pitcher.
Strain the hot tea into the pitcher and stir well.

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.

Flaxseed + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together151 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flaxseed + sugartop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together233 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

Whole flaxseed: Steeping in boiling water releases its mucilage, giving the tea body and a slightly thick mouthfeel.
Lemon: Adds acidity and fresh citrus aroma that brightens the flavour of the tea.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the lemon's acidity.