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Drink

A Drink for the Sick

A soothing drink made from Irish moss steeped in boiling water, flavored with lemon and optional wine, vanilla, or nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Irish moss and lemon work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 61 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

A Drink for the Sick

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and steep

  1. Wash the Irish moss thoroughly.

  2. Place the moss in a pitcher and pour 2 cups of boiling water over it.

  3. Let it simmer for 2 hours.

Strain and flavor

  1. Strain the mixture and squeeze in the juice of 1 lemon to taste.

  2. If desired, add flavorings such as wine, vanilla, or nutmeg.

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. Irish moss + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Irish moss + winetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Irish moss
Its natural gelling compounds thicken the water into a soft, gel-like tea.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the mild, earthy taste of the moss.

The step that matters

Let it simmer for 2 hours. Irish moss must be held in hot liquid long enough for its gelling compounds to release into the water. Too short a time gives a weak, thin tea that will not set or thicken properly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (irish moss, wine):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Peachfits less well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against irish moss, wine. 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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