Skip to main content
Main

Light Diet

A selection of light foods for invalids, including tea, bread, gruel, broth, fish, custard, eggs, and roasted chicken with vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 25 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,232 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Light Diet

Ingredients

Directions

Breakfast and light meals

  1. Brew a cup of tea and serve with a half slice of bread and butter.

  2. Prepare a serving of gruel and add cream.

  3. Serve a crusty roll with butter.

  4. Heat a cup of clear beef or chicken broth and serve with a strip of toast.

  5. Steam the whiting and serve with a half slice of bread.

  6. Make a milk pudding using semolina or ground rice and serve 6 ounces of milk.

  7. Prepare a savoury custard and serve with a lightly boiled egg.

  8. Brew a cup of tea or milk and serve with a roll and butter.

  9. Serve a biscuit and a little fruit.

Dinner

  1. Roast the chicken and serve with bread sauce, cauliflower, and stewed vegetable marrow.

  2. Serve roasted apples or apple cream with cream.

  3. Prepare a meat infusion or a cup of thin invalid food.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cream + whitingtop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the pudding and custard, softening texture.
Eggs
Set the savoury custard, giving it a firm yet tender texture when gently cooked.
Semolina or ground rice
Thickens the milk pudding, giving it a soft, spoonable body.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the gruel and apple cream.
Bread
Provides soft starch that is gentle on the stomach and easy to eat.

The step that matters

Prepare the savoury custard. Eggs set through gentle heat; too much heat makes the custard curdle and turn grainy. Low, slow cooking keeps it smooth and tender.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes