Name: Iixseed Tea
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon linseed; ½ pint cold water; ½ pint fresh cold water; lemon; sugar

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 ↓

Iixseed Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Combine linseed and ½ pint of cold water in a saucepan.
Heat over medium until warm.
Strain the water off.

Boil and season

Add ½ pint of fresh cold water to the linseed.
Boil for 3 to 4 minutes.
Season with lemon and sugar to taste.

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

Linseed: Releases mucilage when soaked and heated, giving the liquid a light, slightly thick body.
Lemon: Adds acidity and fresh aroma that brighten the flavour of the tea.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the tea's mild, earthy 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.