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Drink

A Very Agreeable Drink

A drink made with capillaire, vinegar, water, tamarinds or currants, and optional sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tamarind and sugar work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 362 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

A Very Agreeable Drink

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour 1 tablespoon of capillaire and 1 tablespoon of good vinegar into a tumbler of fresh cold water.

  2. Add tamarinds, currants (fresh or jelly), or scalded currants or cranberries.

  3. Sweeten with sugar if desired.

  4. Stir well and enjoy.

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. Tamarind + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Vinegar + tamarindtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Capillaire
Adds a sweet, aromatic flavour to balance the drink.
Good vinegar
Adds sharpness that brightens the drink's flavour.
Tamarinds or currants
Provide the fruity tartness that gives the drink its character.

Swap the tamarind

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Tamarindthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar. 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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