Name: Milk Diet
Ingredients: 1 pint of milk; 12 oz. of semolina pudding; 12 oz. of rice pudding; 12 oz. of bread pudding; 1 pint of tea or coffee; 5 oz. of bread; ½ oz. of butter

Why it works: Rice and tea work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 197 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Milk Diet

Ingredients

Directions

Breakfast

For breakfast, serve 1 pint of tea or coffee with 5 oz. of bread and ½ oz. of butter.

Dinner by day

For dinner on Sunday and Wednesday, serve 1 pint of milk with 12 oz. of semolina pudding.
On Monday, Thursday, and Saturday, serve 1 pint of milk with 12 oz. of rice pudding.
On Tuesday and Friday, serve 1 pint of milk with 12 oz. of bread pudding.
Beef tea may replace milk if advised by medical staff.

Supper

For supper, repeat breakfast but omit coffee.

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.

Rice + teatop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together197 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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: Provides the main liquid and nourishment in each dinner, carrying the daily fluid intake.
Semolina pudding: Supplies starch and body as a soft, easily eaten dish for dinner.
Rice pudding: Supplies starch and body as a soft, easily eaten dish for dinner.
Bread pudding: Supplies starch and body as a soft, easily eaten dish for dinner.
Bread: Adds starch and bulk to the breakfast and supper meals.

“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.