Why it works: Brandy and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,738 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓
Purging Drink
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the senna in a quart of water.
Let it infuse for two hours in a covered pot.
Strain the mixture and add Glauber's salts, Lenitive electuary, Barbadoes aloes, Prepared kali, and brandy.
Administer the drink warm with new milk after the horse has cooled down.
Let the horse fast for one hour, then give a mash of scalded bran, oats, and warm water.
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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Brandy + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,738 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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