Name: Ordinary Diet
Ingredients: 10 ounces of bread; ½ pint of milk; 6 ounces of undressed meat (roast and boiled alternately); ½ pound of potatoes; 1 pint of gruel or 1 pint of broth

Why it works: Milk and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Ordinary Diet

Ingredients

10 ounces of bread
½ pint of milk
6 ounces of undressed meat (roast and boiled alternately)
½ pound of potatoes
1 pint of gruel or 1 pint of broth

Directions

Serve 10 ounces of bread daily.
For breakfast, use ½ pint of milk.
For dinner, serve 6 ounces of undressed meat, alternating between roast and boiled, with ½ pound of potatoes.
For supper, serve either 1 pint of gruel or 1 pint of broth.

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.

Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together786 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Bread + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together434 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread: Provides the bulk of the daily starch, giving the diet its main source of energy.
Milk: Adds moisture and richness to the breakfast portion.
Meat: Supplies protein and savoury flavour, with roasting browning the surface and boiling keeping it moist.
Potatoes: Add starch and bulk to the dinner, soaking up flavour from the meat.