Name: Cottage Cheese or Schmier-kase
Ingredients: milk (skimmed or whole); fresh butter; coarse sea salt; thick sweet cream

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cottage Cheese or Schmier-kase

Ingredients

milk (skimmed or whole)
fresh butter
coarse sea salt
thick sweet cream

Directions

Let the milk sit in a bowl or pan at room temperature until it forms a firm curd, which may take 24 to 48 hours.
Once the curd has formed and begins to crack, pour it into a coarse muslin or cheese-cloth bag.
Tie the bag closed and suspend it in a cool, shaded area to drain the whey until it stops dripping.
Take a portion of the cheese and mix it with a generous lump of fresh butter, a little coarse sea salt, and enough thick sweet cream to achieve a soft consistency.
Serve the cheese very cold, with a pitcher of cream and salt or sugar to taste.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).