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Common Diet Table

A list of foods and portions for a common diet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Common Diet Table

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare 1 pint of milk potage.

  2. Serve with 4 oz. of bread.

  3. Brew 1 pint of tea.

  4. Add 5 oz. of bread and 4 oz. of butter.

  5. Cook 6 oz. of beef or mutton, boiled or roasted.

  6. Serve with 8 oz. of potatoes or rice.

  7. Include 3 oz. of bread.

  8. Make 1 pint of soup thickened with meal, barley, or peas, adding 2 oz. of meat.

  9. Prepare 8 oz. of pudding using any combination of bread, rice, sago, arrowroot, tapioca, batter, or suet, sweetened.

  10. Serve with 3 oz. of bread and 8 oz. of white fish.

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. Potato + barleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  3. Beef + barleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

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

  5. Beef + potatotop 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
Provides liquid and richness to the potage, giving it a soft, smooth body.
Bread
Supplies bulk and starch, filling the meal and absorbing liquids such as tea and soup.
Butter
Adds fat, which carries flavour and gives a richer mouthfeel to the bread.
Beef or mutton
Provides protein and fat; boiling or roasting firms and savours the meat.
Potatoes or rice
Adds starch, bulking the meal with a filling, mild-tasting base.
White fish
Adds lean protein that stays tender when cooked gently.

“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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