Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Wine Whey
Ingredients
Directions
Curdle the milk
Scald the milk in a small porcelain saucepan.
Stir in the wine and let it come to a boil.
Strain and sweeten
Remove from heat and strain through muslin.
Squeeze to extract all liquid and sweeten to taste.
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.
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + winetop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,116 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (fenugreek, curry).
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Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together9,581 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
- Milk
- Supplies the proteins that curdle, separating into solid curds and the clear liquid whey.
- Wine
- Its acidity helps the hot milk curdle, separating the curds from the whey.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to the finished whey.
The step that matters
Stir in the wine and let it come to a boil. The wine's acid must be stirred through the hot milk so the proteins curdle evenly. Uneven mixing leaves milk unset and makes the whey cloudy or weakly separated.
“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.
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