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Simple Drinks for the Sick

A simple drink made by steeping dried tart apples, tamarinds, cranberries, currants, and whortleberries in boiling water, sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,207 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Simple Drinks for the Sick

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour boiling water over the dried tart apples, tamarinds, cranberries, currants, and whortleberries.

  2. Let it steep for a moment, then pour off the water.

  3. Sweeten the liquid to taste.

  4. Add a little wine if allowed.

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. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Apple + tamarindtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together86 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Tamarind + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried tart apples
Provide tart fruit flavour and body to the infusion.
Tamarinds
Add sourness and a deep, tangy flavour to the tea.
Cranberries
Contribute tartness and a bright, acidic fruit flavour.
Currants
Add fruity sweetness and depth of flavour to the infusion.
Whortleberries
Add fruity flavour and colour to the tea.

Swap the tamarind

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, currant, sugar, wine):

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Tamarindthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, currant, sugar, wine. 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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