Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Cottage Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Drain the curd
Pour the milk slowly into a bag and allow it to drip.
Heat the milk over hot water until lukewarm (about 100°F).
Let the curd stand for 30 minutes.
Pour the curd into a strainer lined with cheesecloth.
Gather the cheesecloth around the curd to form a bag.
Hang the bag until the curd is free from whey.
Season
Moisten the curd with a little butter, oleomargarine, or top milk.
Add salt 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.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Clabbered milk or buttermilk
- Soured milk whose acid and set curds form the base of the cheese.
- Butter, oleomargarine, or top milk
- Adds richness and moisture to the drained curd.
The step that matters
Hang the bag until the curd is free from whey. Whey is the watery liquid left after curds form. If it is not fully drained, the cottage cheese stays wet and loose instead of firm and crumbly.
“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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