Name: Dinner
Ingredients: 1 quart milk; vegetables (baked potatoes, tomatoes, French beans, rice, or macaroni); dry bread

Why it works: Milk and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Dinner

Ingredients

1 quart milk
vegetables (baked potatoes, tomatoes, French beans, rice, or macaroni)
dry bread

Directions

Prepare 1 quart of milk for soup.
Choose and bake your preferred vegetables.
Serve with dry bread.

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.

Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together434 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk: Forms the liquid base of the soup, giving it a creamy body and mild sweetness.
Vegetables: Add flavour, substance and body to the soup; baking them concentrates their sweetness and softens their texture.
Dry bread: Serves as a crisp accompaniment that contrasts with the soft, creamy soup.