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Flaxseed Tea

A tea made by steeping flaxseed, sugar, lemon juice, and licorice root in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Tea

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine flaxseed, sugar, lemon juice, and licorice root in a heatproof container.

  2. Pour 2 pints of boiling water over the mixture.

  3. Let it stand in a warm place for 4 hours.

  4. Strain the liquid to serve.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Flaxseed + licoricetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Sugar + licoricetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together76 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flaxseed + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and lemon 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

Flaxseed
Releases mucilage into the water, giving the tea a thick, soothing body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the sugar.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharp acidity and licorice flavor.
Licorice root
Contributes a sweet, aromatic flavor that infuses into the water as it steeps.

The step that matters

Let it stand in a warm place for 4 hours. Flavor and mucilage are extracted slowly by steeping. Too little time leaves the tea weak and thin, while the warm setting keeps the infusion extracting steadily.

Swap the licorice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Licoricethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flaxseed, sugar, lemon. 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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