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Drink

Koumiss

Fermented milk beverage made by dissolving sugar in water and fermenting milk.

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

  1. Dissolve the sugar in a little water over heat.

  2. Fill a quart champagne bottle with milk up to the neck.

  3. Add the dissolved sugar to the milk.

Ferment

  1. Seal the bottle and let it ferment for 24 to 48 hours.

  2. Store the bottle in a cool place, not above 50°F (10°C).

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

Milk
Provides the liquid and lactose that microbes ferment into lactic acid and carbon dioxide.
White sugar
Feeds the fermentation, adding sweetness and producing carbon dioxide for a light fizz.

The step that matters

Keeping the bottle cool while it ferments. Fermentation produces carbon dioxide inside a sealed bottle. Keeping it cool slows the process so pressure builds gradually, reducing the risk of the bottle bursting and keeping the flavour controlled.

“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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