Name: Milk Diet
Ingredients: 14 ounces hominy or corn-meal mush; 16 ounces milk; 12 ounces cooked rice or tapioca; 1 ounce syrup; 4 ounces bread; ½ ounce butter; 14 ounces cooked cracked wheat or oaten-grits; 12 ounces toasted bread

Why it works: Corn and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Milk Diet

Ingredients

Directions

For breakfast, serve 14 ounces of hominy or corn-meal mush with 16 ounces of milk.
For dinner, serve 12 ounces of cooked rice or tapioca with 16 ounces of milk, 1 ounce of syrup, 4 ounces of bread, and ½ ounce of butter.
For supper, serve 14 ounces of cooked cracked wheat or oaten-grits with 12 ounces of toasted bread and 16 ounces of milk.

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.

Corn + wheattop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together465 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Corn + ricetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Rice + wheattop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together423 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Milk: Adds moisture and softness, letting the starchy dishes be eaten as a liquid-soaked porridge or mush.
Hominy or corn-meal mush: Provides the bulk of the breakfast, supplying starch that thickens and fills the meal.
Cooked rice or tapioca: Supplies starch for bulk and a soft, tender texture at dinner.
Toasted bread: Adds dry crunch and browned flavour that contrasts with the soft grain and milk at supper.

“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.