Name: Cottage Cheese
Ingredients: skimmed milk; buttermilk (optional); salt; cream (optional); seasonings (optional)

Why it works: Buttermilk and cream work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 674 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cottage Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Combine skimmed milk and buttermilk in a pot.
Allow the mixture to ferment at room temperature until curds form.
Drain the curds from the whey.
If desired, mix the curds with cream and salt.
Season to taste with additional seasonings if desired.

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.

Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together674 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttermilktop 41% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).