Name: Ordinary Diet
Ingredients: 1 lb bread; ½ lb cooked meat (roast mutton or boiled mutton or boiled beef); ½ lb potatoes; 1 pint soup (on boiled meat days); 1 pint beef tea (for low diet)

Why it works: Potato and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Ordinary Diet

Ingredients

1 lb bread
½ lb cooked meat (roast mutton or boiled mutton or boiled beef)
½ lb potatoes
1 pint soup (on boiled meat days)
1 pint beef tea (for low diet)

Directions

Serve 1 lb of bread with ½ lb of cooked meat, alternating between roast mutton, boiled mutton, and boiled beef.
Add ½ lb of potatoes as a side.
On days with boiled meat, include 1 pint of soup.
For a low diet, serve 1 pint of beef tea instead.

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.

Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Potato + teatop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together136 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,533 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,032 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Beef + teatop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together417 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).