Name: Cereals Cooked in Milk
Ingredients: 1 cup cornmeal or oatmeal; 4 cups skim milk (or more for rice); 1 cup rice; sugar or syrup to taste; raisins to taste

Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cereals Cooked in Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

For cornmeal or oatmeal, use equal parts milk and cereal.
For rice, use 4 cups of milk for 1 cup of rice.

Cook and sweeten

Cook in a double boiler for 1 hour.
Add sugar or syrup and raisins for a sweeter flavor.

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.

Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together565 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,155 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they 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

Cornmeal or oatmeal: Forms the thick body of the porridge as it cooks in the milk.
Skim milk: Provides the liquid that the cereal absorbs and swells in while cooking.
Rice: Softens as it cooks, giving the porridge a creamy, tender texture.
Sugar or syrup: Adds sweetness to the finished porridge.
Raisins: Add chewy pockets of sweetness to the finished porridge.