Name: Broth Diet
Ingredients: 1½ cups broth; 6 ounces potatoes (mashed); 2 tablespoons butter; 1 pint tea

Why it works: Potato and tea work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 136 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Broth Diet

Ingredients

1½ cups broth
6 ounces potatoes (mashed)
2 tablespoons butter
1 pint tea

Directions

Prepare

Heat the broth in a pot until warm.
Mash the potatoes in a bowl.
Stir in the butter until melted and combined.

Serve

Serve the broth alongside the mashed potatoes.
Brew and serve the tea separately.

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.

Potato + teatop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together136 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + teatop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together703 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Broth: Provides liquid moisture and savory flavor to the dish.
Potatoes: Form the starchy base, giving the mash bulk and a soft, thick texture.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

“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.