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
Pour the milk into a saucepan and bring it to a boil.
Slowly add ⅓ cup of sherry wine while skimming off the curd for about 15 minutes.
Add 1 tablespoon more of sherry wine and skim any remaining curd.
Sweeten to taste and season with nutmeg if desired.
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).
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Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,246 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Milk + winetop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,116 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (fenugreek, curry).
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Wine + nutmegtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,356 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the curd when the sherry wine causes it to separate from the whey.
- Sherry wine
- Acid that curdles the milk proteins, separating curd from the liquid whey.
The step that matters
Slowly adding the sherry wine while skimming. Adding the wine gradually lets the milk proteins curdle in steady clumps that are easy to skim. Adding it too fast can leave fine curd suspended in the whey, making the whey cloudy and harder to clear.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sherry, wine):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Thymefits better
- Clovefits better
- Nutmegthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sherry, wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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