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 Wiiev
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Boil the fresh milk in a saucepan.
Once boiling, add enough madeira or sherry to coagulate the milk.
Strain the mixture to remove solids.
Finish and serve
Sweeten or flavor to your preference before serving.
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 + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,479 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,141 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Fresh milk
- Forms the body of the pudding; its proteins set into soft curds when acidified.
- Madeira or sherry
- Its acidity and alcohol cause the hot milk to coagulate into curds.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the wine's tartness.
The step that matters
Adding the madeira or sherry to boiling milk. The wine must be added once the milk is boiling so the proteins coagulate into curds. Adding too little wine leaves the milk unset, while adding too much makes the pudding sharply sour and strongly alcoholic.
“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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