Name: Milk Diet
Ingredients: 1 pint broth; ½ cup barley; 1 pint boiled rice; 1 pint milk; 1 pint tea; 12 oz bread (for males); 10 oz bread (for females)

Why it works: Barley and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 568 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Milk Diet

Ingredients

Directions

Mix 1 pint of broth with ½ cup of barley for Wednesday and Friday.
On Tuesday and Saturday, serve 1 pint of boiled rice with 1 pint of milk.
For tea, prepare 1 pint of tea.
On Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, serve ½ cup of milk.
On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, serve ½ cup of boiled rice with 1 pint of milk.
Provide 12 oz of bread for males and 10 oz for females daily.

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.

Barley + ricetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together568 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + teatop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together197 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together49 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).