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Schmidt Test Diet

A diet plan featuring milk, cocoa, oatmeal gruel, chopped beef, butter, and potato broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Schmidt Test Diet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If using cocoa, mix cocoa powder, sugar, and water to prepare 16 oz. cocoa.

  2. Prepare oatmeal gruel by cooking oatmeal in water, then adding butter, milk, and a strained egg.

  3. Broil chopped beef rare with butter until the interior remains raw.

  4. Make potato broth by mashing potatoes and mixing with milk and butter.

Serve

  1. Serve the diet consistently for a couple of days.

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

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

  2. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Cocoa + potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together37 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
Adds liquid and richness, softening the gruel and broth and contributing to a smooth texture.
Oatmeal
Thickens the gruel as its starch absorbs water and swells during cooking.
Egg
Adds protein and richness, helping bind and enrich the gruel as it is combined.
Chopped beef
Provides protein and savory flavor, with its texture kept soft by broiling rare with butter.
Potatoes
Provide starch that thickens the broth and gives it a smooth, creamy body when mashed.

The step that matters

Broil chopped beef rare with butter until the interior remains raw. Beef cooked past rare becomes firmer and drier as proteins tighten and moisture is pressed out. Stopping at rare keeps the meat tender and moist, so the interior must be checked carefully rather than cooked through.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, beef, potato):

  1. Peanutfits better
  2. Peasfits about as well
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, beef, potato. 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.

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