Name: Simple Diet
Ingredients: 12 oz. bread; 5 lb. potatoes; 1 pint milk; 4 oz. dressed meat (beef or mutton); 1 pint soup (made with 4 oz. beef); 1 pint broth with barley; 1 pint rice pudding; 1 pint batter pudding; 1 pint gruel

Why it works: Barley and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 568 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Simple Diet

Ingredients

Directions

Consume 12 oz. of bread daily.
Boil or roast 4 oz. of dressed meat (beef or mutton) alternately with 5 lb. of potatoes over 4 days.
Prepare soup with 4 oz. of beef and serve with 1 pint of broth with barley.
Alternate 1 pint of milk with rice pudding and batter pudding over 4 days.
Serve 1 pint of gruel 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.

Barley + ricetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together568 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Potato + barleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together165 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together851 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Beef + barleytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together458 recipes

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

Bread: Provides starch and bulk as a staple food in the diet.
Potatoes: Supply starch and bulk, making the meat portions fill out the meals.
Milk: Adds moisture and a mild, creamy base for the pudding.
Beef or mutton: Provides protein; boiling or roasting firms and browns the meat.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, meat, beef, barley, rice):

Potatothe original
Asparagusfits about as well
Leekfits about as well
Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, meat, beef, barley, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.