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Breakfast

Breakfast

A simple breakfast of milk poured into a glass with sliced bananas, apples, pears, and plums served on a plate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and plum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour 1 pint of milk into a glass.

  2. Serve bananas, apples, pears, and plums on a plate. Add any other fresh fruit you desire.

  3. Enjoy the meal at your leisure.

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. Pear + plumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

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

  2. Apple + peartop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Apple + plumtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

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

  4. Banana + peartop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together87 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Banana + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together435 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

Milk
Provides moisture and a creamy, mild base for the breakfast.
Bananas
Adds natural sweetness and soft texture to the fruit selection.
Apples
Adds crisp texture and mild tartness to the fruit selection.
Pears
Adds juicy texture and gentle sweetness to the fruit selection.
Plums
Adds tart, juicy flavour and colour to the fruit selection.

Swap the banana

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, apple, pear, plum):

  1. Apricotfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, apple, pear, plum. 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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