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Drink

Modified Milk

A medicinal milk drink with lime water, cream, milk-sugar, albuminoids, and barley jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Modified Milk

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix 2 ounces of milk with 2 teaspoons of lime-water.

  2. Add 2 ounces of cream, 6 ounces of milk-sugar, and 1 ounce of albuminoids, then stir well to combine all ingredients.

  3. Serve in 2-ounce feedings, adjusting the amount as needed.

  4. If constipation occurs, consider increasing the cream.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lime + barleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + barleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Adds fat, which contributes richness and softness to the drink.
Milk-sugar
Provides sweetness and energy as the main carbohydrate in the drink.
Albuminoids
Supplies protein, adding body to the mixture.

Swap the lime

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, sugar, barley):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, sugar, barley. 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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