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Breakfast

Fever Diet

A set of foods and drinks for a fever diet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fever Diet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the food

  1. Brew 1 pint of tea.

  2. Prepare 1 lb of bread.

  3. Cook ½ lb of meat.

  4. Boil 1 lb of potatoes until tender.

Prepare the drinks and broths

  1. Serve 2 pints of beer if desired.

  2. Make 1 pint of broth.

  3. Prepare 1 pint of beef tea.

  4. Make 1 pint of gruel or milk if desired.

  5. Serve 1 pint of milk.

  6. Prepare barley water.

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. Potato + barleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Beef + barleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Tea + barleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch softens as they boil, giving a tender, soft texture.
Meat
Cooking firms and browns the proteins, giving the meat a savoury flavour and texture.
Broth
Adds liquid and savoury flavour to the diet.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil the potatoes until tender. Starch in potatoes swells and softens as they cook. Stopping too early leaves them firm and chalky in the centre, while overcooking makes them waterlogged and crumbly.

“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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