Name: Cottage Cheese
Ingredients: 1 quart sour milk; milk or cream to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; black pepper (optional)

Why it works: Milk and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 26,984 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cottage Cheese

Ingredients

1 quart sour milk
milk or cream to taste
coarse sea salt to taste
black pepper (optional)

Directions

Prepare

Place sour milk in a warm spot until whey separates from curd.
Pour into a three-cornered bag and hang to drain until whey is fully removed.

Finish

Transfer curd to a bowl and mash until very fine.
Add a little milk or cream and salt to taste.
Optionally, sprinkle black pepper on top 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.

Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together26,984 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sour milk: Its acidity causes the milk to separate into curds and whey, forming the cheese.
Milk or cream: Adds moisture and softness to the drained curd, making it smoother and creamier.

“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.