Name: Full Diet
Ingredients: 3 oz tea; ½ pint milk; 1 oz sugar; ½ lb meat; ½ lb potatoes

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

Brew 3 oz of tea.
Serve the tea with ½ pint of milk and 1 oz of sugar for breakfast.
Roast ½ lb of meat for dinner.
Boil ½ lb of meat for dinner.
Grill ½ lb of meat for dinner.
Boil ½ lb of potatoes as a side dish.
Bake ½ lb of potatoes as a side dish.
Serve 3 oz of tea with ½ pint of milk and 1 oz of sugar 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.

Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together136 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together738 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together786 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Tea + meattop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together207 recipes

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