Name: Milk Diet
Ingredients: 14 ounces hominy or cornmeal; 16 ounces milk; 12 ounces cooked rice or tapioca; 1 ounce syrup; 4 ounces bread; ½ ounce butter; 14 ounces cooked cracked wheat or oat grits; 12 ounces toasted bread

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Milk Diet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Prepare hominy or cornmeal mush.
Cook rice or tapioca.
Cook cracked wheat or oat grits.

Serve

Serve with milk for breakfast.
Serve with milk, syrup, and bread with butter for dinner.
Serve with toasted bread and milk for supper.

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.

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).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk: Provides moisture and softens the grains, making each dish soft and easy to eat.
Hominy or cornmeal: Forms the thick base of the breakfast mush, giving it body and a starchy structure.
Cooked rice or tapioca: Adds soft, starchy body to the dinner dish, absorbing milk and thickening the bowl.
Syrup: Adds sweetness to the dinner dish, balancing the plain starch and milk.
Cooked cracked wheat or oat grits: Supplies chewy, starchy bulk for the supper dish, holding its shape in milk.
Toasted bread: Adds browning, crisp texture and toasted flavor that contrasts with the soft milk.

“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.