Name: Cocoa Nibs or Shells
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons cocoa nibs; 1 pint boiling water; 1 pint hot milk

Why it works: Cocoa and milk work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 643 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cocoa Nibs or Shells

Ingredients

3 tablespoons cocoa nibs
1 pint boiling water
1 pint hot milk

Directions

Prepare

Wet the cocoa nibs with a little cold water.
Add the nibs to the boiling water and cook slowly for one hour.

Finish and serve

Strain the mixture and add the hot milk.
Boil for one minute and serve.

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.

Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together643 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Cocoa nibs: Provide the main chocolate flavour and a slightly bitter, roasted depth to the drink.
Milk: Adds creaminess and a softer, rounder body that mellows the bitterness of the cocoa.

“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.