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Half Convalescent Diet

A diet consisting of bread, milk, meat, potatoes, and gruel or broth, served in portions for breakfast, dinner, and supper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Half Convalescent Diet

Ingredients

Directions

  1. For breakfast, consume 1 pint of milk.

  2. For dinner, alternate between 4 oz. of roast and boiled undressed meat, served with ½ lb. of potatoes.

  3. For supper, have 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.

  1. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. 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

Milk
Provides liquid for a soft, easily eaten breakfast.
Undressed meat
Forms the firm, plain protein course, cooked by roasting or boiling.
Potatoes
Provide starch as a bulk side that makes the dinner more filling.
Gruel or broth
Supplies liquid and a soft texture for supper.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, 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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