Name: Fever Diet
Ingredients: 14 oz. Bread; 10 oz. Bread; 1 lb. Meat; 1 lb. Potatoes; ½ pint Milk; 1 pint Porter; 1 pint Tea; 1 pint Barley Water

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

Serve 14 oz. of bread with porridge or rice gruel, sweetened with sugar and milk for breakfast.
Serve 1 lb. of meat, roasted or boiled, with 1 lb. of potatoes for dinner.
Serve 1 pint of milk or tea with thin gruel, sweetened with sugar and milk for supper.

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 + barleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together165 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Tea + barleytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together49 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Potato + teatop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together136 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread: Supplies starch for energy and bulk at breakfast.
Meat: Supplies protein and fat, and browns when roasted for flavour.
Potatoes: Adds starch and bulk, becoming soft and filling when boiled.
Milk: Adds richness and creaminess to the gruel and tea, and softens their taste.

“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.