Name: To Prepare Cocoa Nibs
Ingredients: 2 ounces cocoa nibs; 3 pints water; milk (to taste); sugar (to taste)

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 ↓

To Prepare Cocoa Nibs

Ingredients

2 ounces cocoa nibs
3 pints water
milk (to taste)
sugar (to taste)

Directions

Make the cocoa

Boil cocoa nibs in water for 2.5 hours, reducing to 1 quart.
Strain the cocoa from the nibs.

Serve

Mix the cocoa with an equal amount of milk.
Sweeten with sugar if desired.

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).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cocoa + sugartop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together956 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Cocoa nibs: Provide the chocolate flavor and the cocoa solids that give the drink its body.
Milk: Adds creaminess and softens the bitterness of the cocoa.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the bitter cocoa flavor.