Name: Milk Diet
Ingredients: 1 pint of milk; 12 oz. of semolina pudding; 1 pint of milk; 8 oz. of rice pudding; 1 pint of milk; 12 oz. of bread pudding; 1 pint of beef tea (optional)

Why it works: Rice and tea work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 197 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Milk Diet

Ingredients

Directions

For breakfast, have 1 pint of tea or coffee, 5 oz. of bread, and ¼ oz. of butter, or boiled bread and milk with porridge and milk.
For dinner on Sunday and Wednesday, serve 1 pint of milk with 12 oz. of semolina pudding.
On Monday, Thursday, and Saturday, serve ½ pint of milk with 8 oz. of rice pudding.
On Tuesday and Friday, serve ½ pint of milk with 12 oz. of bread pudding.
If preferred, substitute ½ pint of beef tea for the ½ pint of milk.
For supper, repeat breakfast but omit coffee.

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.

Rice + teatop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together197 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,265 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together738 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).