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Drink

Flax Seed Lemonade

A chilled beverage made by steeping flax seed in boiling water, then adding lemon juice, sugar, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Flax Seed Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the seed

  1. Pour boiling water over the flax seed in a covered pitcher.

  2. Stew for 3 hours.

Flavor and serve

  1. Add the lemon juice, leaving out the peel.

  2. Sweeten to taste.

  3. If too thick, add cold water with the lemon juice and sugar.

  4. Serve chilled over ice.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flax seed
Its natural gums release into the hot water, thickening the drink and giving it body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavor that balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tartness of the lemon juice.

The step that matters

Thinning the mixture. Flax seed keeps releasing gum into the liquid while it stews, so the drink can become too thick. Adding cold water and more lemon juice and sugar loosens it and rebalances the flavor.

“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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