Name: Full Diet
Ingredients: 1 pint oatmeal; ½ cup buttermilk; 6 oz boiled meat; 16 oz potatoes; 3 oz bread; 1 oz barley; ½ oz vegetables; 2 oz meat; 10 oz new milk

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 ↓

Full Diet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Prepare porridge by cooking 1 pint of oatmeal in water until thick.
Stir in ½ cup of buttermilk before serving.

Make the broth

Make broth by simmering 1 oz of barley with ½ oz of vegetables and 2 oz of meat.

Serve

For dinner, serve 6 oz of boiled meat with 16 oz of boiled potatoes and 3 oz of bread.
For supper, serve 16 oz of potatoes with 10 oz of new milk.

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.

Potato + barleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together165 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Potato + milktop 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).
Bread + barleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together201 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Meat + barleytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together224 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal: Forms the thick body of the porridge as its starch swells in hot water.
Buttermilk: Adds tang and a creamy richness when stirred into the hot porridge.
Potatoes: Supply starch and bulk, giving the meal a filling, soft texture when boiled.
Barley: Thickens the broth and adds a chewy texture as its starch softens.

Swap the potato

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

Potatothe original
Asparagusfits about as well
Chivefits less well
Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against buttermilk, meat, bread, barley, milk. 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.