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Alterative, a Valuable Syrup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Dandelion and burdock share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Alterative, a Valuable Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the roots into small pieces.

  2. Boil all the ingredients together in 4 gallons of water until reduced to 4 quarts.

  3. Let the mixture cool and settle, then strain and press out the liquid.

  4. Add 8 pounds of white sugar to the strained liquid.

  5. Heat and stir until the sugar is melted.

  6. Once cooled, bottle the syrup for use.

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. Dandelion + burdocktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Dandelion + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Burdock + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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