Name: Middle Diet
Ingredients: 6 oz bread; 1 lb beef, boiled (exclusive of bone); 1 pint beef broth; 4 oz bread; ½ pint tea; 1 egg; ½ pint new milk; 4 oz porter or gin or wine

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Middle Diet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

Boil the beef until tender and reserve the broth.

Serve the meals

Serve 6 oz of bread with the boiled beef and 1 pint of broth for dinner.
For supper, serve 4 oz of bread with ½ pint of tea.
You may include 1 egg, ½ pint of new milk, or up to 4 oz of porter, gin, or wine as extras.

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.

Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Tea + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together738 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,759 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,032 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Beef + teatop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together417 recipes

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