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Drink

Koumiss

A fermented milk beverage made by adding yeast to warm milk and allowing it to rise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Koumiss

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Dissolve the yeast in a little warm water.

  2. In a bowl, combine the milk and sugar, then add the dissolved yeast.

Ferment

  1. Pour the mixture into beer bottles, filling them to the neck.

  2. Let the bottles stand for 12 hours at a temperature of 68°F to 70°F.

Chill and serve

  1. Afterward, place the bottles upside down in the ice until ready to use.

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.

  1. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

Yeast
Ferments the sugar, producing carbon dioxide that gives the drink its fizz.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, so fermentation produces carbon dioxide and a little alcohol.
Milk
Forms the liquid base in which the yeast ferments.

The step that matters

Standing the filled bottles at fermentation temperature. Yeast produces carbon dioxide inside sealed bottles, building pressure over the 12 hours. Keeping the temperature within the stated range controls how fast gas builds, reducing the risk of over-pressurised bottles bursting.

“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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