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 ↓
Full Diet
Ingredients
Directions
Serve 14 oz. of bread daily.
Brew ½ oz. of tea for breakfast.
Serve the brewed tea with 1 pint of milk and ½ oz. of sugar.
Prepare ½ lb. of meat by roasting or boiling.
Serve the meat with 1 lb. of potatoes.
Brew another ½ oz. of tea for supper.
Serve the brewed tea with 1 pint of milk and ½ oz. of sugar.
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.
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Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Tea + potatotop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together136 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Tea + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together738 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together786 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread
- Provides the starchy base of the daily diet.
- Tea
- Supplies the brewed drink served at breakfast and supper.
- Milk
- Mixed into the brewed tea to add creaminess and soften its bitterness.
- Sugar
- Added to the tea to add sweetness.
- Meat
- Serves as the main protein at the meal, cooked by roasting or boiling.
- Potatoes
- Served alongside the meat as the starchy side dish.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, tea, milk, sugar, meat):
- Potatothe original
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Tomatofits less well
- Asparagusfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, tea, milk, sugar, meat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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