Name: Food Used in an Incubator When Breast-milk Was Not Obtainable
Ingredients: 1 part goat milk; 4 parts sterile water; ¼ teaspoon milk sugar; ¼ measure peptogenic powder

Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and 77,875 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Food Used in an Incubator When Breast-milk Was Not Obtainable

Ingredients

1 part goat milk
4 parts sterile water
¼ teaspoon milk sugar
¼ measure peptogenic powder

Directions

Prepare

Mix goat milk and sterile water in a clean container.
Add milk sugar and peptogenic powder, stirring until dissolved.
Heat the mixture for five minutes.

Feed

Feed 1 ounce to the premature baby using a medicine dropper every two and a half hours, then every two hours as needed.

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.

Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Goat milk + milktop 23% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together6 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Goat milk + sugartop 38% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together7 recipes

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

Milk and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 77,875 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Goat milk: Forms the main liquid base and supplies the protein and fat of the formula.
Milk sugar: Adds sweetness and carbohydrate energy to the mixture.

“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.