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Drink

Koumiss

Fermented milk beverage made by adding yeast and sugar to fresh milk and fermenting.

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. Fill lager beer bottles to the neck with fresh milk.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of yeast and 2 teaspoons of sugar to each bottle.

Ferment and chill

  1. Place the bottles in a warm environment at 80°F (27°C) for 6 hours, shaking occasionally.

  2. Refrigerate the bottles for 2 or more days before serving.

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

Fresh milk
Provides the base liquid and proteins and sugars that the yeast ferments.
Yeast
Ferments the milk sugars, producing gas and the slightly fizzy, tangy character.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, driving fermentation and adding a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Refrigerating for 2 or more days. Fermentation continues slowly in the cold, and the bottles can build pressure as gas accumulates. Chilling for the full time lets the flavor develop and the gas dissolve, so the drink is ready and less likely to over-carbonate when opened.

“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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