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Drink

Genuine Italian Capillaire Syrup

A syrup made by steeping maidenhair leaves in boiling water, then mixing with honey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Genuine Italian Capillaire Syrup

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Remove the leaves from the stalks of the maidenhair.

  2. Pour boiling water over the leaves and cover tightly.

  3. Let it steep for 18 hours.

  4. Filter the mixture through paper.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine the filtered liquid with honey and boil for a few minutes.

  2. Strain the syrup through flannel.

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

What each ingredient does

Maidenhair leaves
Provide the main aromatic flavor that infuses into the water.
Boiling water
Extracts flavor from the leaves during the long steep.
Pure honey
Provides sweetness and body, and forms the bulk of the syrup.

“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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