Why it works: Milk and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,479 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓
Wine Whey
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the milk in a saucepan until it reaches a boiling point.
Add the sherry and bring it back to a boil.
Strain the mixture through cheesecloth.
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 + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,479 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Provides the liquid and proteins that curdle, separating into curds and whey.
- Sherry
- Its acidity causes the milk proteins to curdle when heated, separating the whey.
The step that matters
Bringing the milk back to a boil after adding the sherry. The acid in the sherry must be fully mixed in and heated so the milk proteins coagulate. If the mixture does not reach a boil, curds may not separate cleanly, leaving the whey cloudy or weak.
“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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