Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Chicago Vienna Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare a sponge by mixing 3 oz. of compressed yeast with 1 ½ cups of water.
When the sponge begins to bubble, add 2 buckets of sweet milk, 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt, ½ lb. of sugar, and ½ lb. of lard.
Allow the dough to rise, then fold it over.
When it rises a second time, divide it into portions and shape into loaves.
Place the loaves in cloths and let them rise again.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). If your oven lacks steam, place a pan of water near the heat source.
Bake the bread, keeping the oven door closed until done.
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.
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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