Why it works: Dandelion and gin work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9 recipes. Both carry 3-methyl-1-butanol, which smells whiskey, malt. The science ↓
Dandelion Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Scrape and wash the dandelion roots.
Cut the roots into pieces 2 to 3 inches long.
Make the tea
Add as much as you can take up with a tablespoon into 3 pints of water.
Simmer the mixture until it reduces to 1 pint.
Serve
Take ½ cup three times a day, with ¼ cup of gin if desired.
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.
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Dandelion + gintop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol (whiskey, malt).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Dandelion roots
- Supply the bitter, earthy flavor compounds that dissolve into the water during simmering.
- Water
- Acts as the solvent that draws flavor out of the roots as they simmer.
The step that matters
Simmer until the liquid reduces to 1 pint. Simmering extracts flavor from the roots into the water, and reduction concentrates it. Stopping too early leaves the tea weak, while reducing too far makes it overly strong and bitter.
“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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