Name: Moist Mash for Young and Old Stock
Ingredients: equal parts wheat bran; equal parts oat feed or ground oats; fine-cracked corn (to make the mash dry and crumbly); 20% beef scrap or cooked fresh waste fish; 40-50% cooked cut clover or cooked vegetables; dry grains (3 parts corn, 1 part oats, wheat, or barley)

Why it works: Wheat and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Moist Mash for Young and Old Stock

Ingredients

equal parts wheat bran
equal parts oat feed or ground oats
fine-cracked corn (to make the mash dry and crumbly)
20% beef scrap or cooked fresh waste fish
40-50% cooked cut clover or cooked vegetables
dry grains (3 parts corn, 1 part oats, wheat, or barley)

Directions

Mix equal parts of wheat bran and oat feed or ground oats.
Add enough fine-cracked corn to make the mash dry and crumbly.
Incorporate 20% beef scrap or cooked fresh waste fish.
Add 40-50% cooked cut clover or cooked vegetables.
Feed this mash to laying fowls and growing chicks over one month old.
In addition, feed a mixture of dry grains once daily.

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.

Wheat + corntop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together465 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Wheat + oatstop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together473 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Oats + corntop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together220 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Wheat + beeftop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together319 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Corn + beeftop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,028 recipes

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