Skip to main content
Drink

Milk Diet

A diet plan prescribing portions of milk, bread, butter, rice, fish, potatoes, beef, pudding, vegetables, and treacle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rice and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 851 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Milk Diet

Ingredients

Directions

  1. For breakfast, serve 1 pint of milk with 2 ounces of bread and 2 ounces of butter.

  2. For dinner, serve 1 pint of milk, 2 ounces of rice, 2.5 ounces of boiled fish, 3 ounces of mashed potatoes, 1.5 ounces of minced beef, and 4 ounces of milk pudding with 1 ounce of green vegetables.

  3. For tea, serve 1 pint of milk with 2 ounces of bread and 2 ounces of treacle or butter.

  4. For supper, serve 2 ounces of biscuits or crackers with a slice of bread and butter.

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. Rice + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Supplies most of the liquid and protein in each meal, adding moisture and richness.
Bread
Provides starch and carbohydrate energy at breakfast, tea and supper.
Potatoes
Supply starch and bulk, giving the dinner plate a soft, filling texture.
Rice
Adds starch and bulk to the dinner plate, giving a soft, filling texture.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, butter, rice, fish, beef):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Leekfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, butter, rice, fish, beef. 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.

You might also like

Rice WaterRice Water82 recipesBeef TeaBeef Tea69 recipesRice MilkRice Milk37 recipesRaw Beef TeaRaw Beef Tea23 recipes