Why it works: Milk and white wine work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 929 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓
Wine Whey
Ingredients
Directions
Make the whey
Heat the milk in a saucepan until it is just about to boil.
Add the white wine and sugar, stirring gently.
Remove from heat and let it sit for a few minutes until the curds form.
Strain the mixture through a fine cloth to separate the whey from the curds.
Serve
Serve warm.
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 + white winetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together929 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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White wine + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,586 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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 proteins that curdle when acid is added, forming the curds and whey.
- White wine
- Its acidity causes the milk proteins to coagulate into curds.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the wine.
The step that matters
Adding the wine and letting the curds form. Acid causes milk proteins to clump, so the wine must be stirred in gently and the milk left to rest long enough for curds to form. Stirring too hard or skipping the rest can leave the separation incomplete, so the whey comes out cloudy and the curds loose.
“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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