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Drink

Flaxseed Lemonade

A simple drink made by simmering flaxseed in boiling water, then adding lemon juice and sweetener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flaxseed and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 151 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Flaxseed Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pick over and wash the flaxseed.

  2. Cover the flaxseed with boiling water and let it simmer for one hour.

  3. Strain the mixture, then add lemon juice and syrup to taste.

  4. Serve hot or cold.

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. Flaxseed + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together151 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flaxseed + syruptop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flaxseed
Releases mucilage into the water, giving the drink its body and slightly thick, silky texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Syrup
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the lemon juice.

The step that matters

Simmer the flaxseed for one hour. Simmering long enough lets the seeds release their mucilage into the water, which thickens the liquid. Too short a simmer leaves the drink thin and watery.

Swap the flaxseed

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, syrup):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Flaxseedthe original
  4. Almondfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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