Name: Cocoa
Ingredients: 6 to 8 roasted cocoa nuts; cold water (1/3 more than the quantity of nuts); milk; sugar

Why it works: Cocoa and nuts work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 65 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Cocoa

Ingredients

6 to 8 roasted cocoa nuts
cold water (1/3 more than the quantity of nuts)
milk
sugar

Directions

Prepare the cocoa

Pound the roasted cocoa nuts in a mortar.
Add cold water in a proportion of one-third more than the quantity of nuts.
Boil gently until the excess water is reduced.
Strain the mixture to prepare the cocoa.

Serve

For serving, mix the cocoa with an equal quantity of milk and boil again.
Strain through a muslin bag into the serving vessel.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + nutstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together65 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together643 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Nuts + milktop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together982 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Nuts + sugartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,228 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Roasted cocoa nuts: Provide the cocoa flavour and the solids that make up the drink.
Milk: Adds creaminess and softens the bitterness of the cocoa.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the cocoa.