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Steak Diet

A one-day diet plan listing bread, coffee, beefsteak, potatoes, barley broth and tea with set quantities for each meal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Steak Diet

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare 6 oz of bread.

  2. Serve with ½ pint of coffee (1 oz coffee, 3 oz milk, 1 oz sugar).

  3. For dinner, cook 4 oz of beefsteak.

  4. Serve with 16 oz of potatoes.

  5. Make 1 pint of broth using 1 oz of barley, ½ oz of vegetables, and 3 oz of meat.

  6. For supper, serve 6 oz of bread with ½ pint of tea (½ oz tea, 1 oz milk, ½ oz sugar).

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. Coffee + teatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together259 recipes

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

  3. Barley + teatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together49 recipes

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

  4. Potato + teatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together136 recipes

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

  5. Bread + barleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

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

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

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, coffee, barley, meat, tea):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits less well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, coffee, barley, meat, tea. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.