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Cued or Cottage ' Cheese

This recipe describes making homemade cottage cheese from clabbered milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cued or Cottage ' Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curd

  1. Set a gallon of clabbered milk on the stove or in the oven after cooking a meal, leaving the door open.

  2. Turn the milk frequently and cut the curd into squares with a knife, stirring gently until warm to the touch and whey separates.

Drain and chop

  1. Pour the curd into a coarse bag and hang to drain in a cool place for 3 to 4 hours or overnight.

  2. When ready, turn the curd out from the bag and chop it coarsely.

Dress and serve

  1. Dress with salt, pepper, and sweet cream, or mash with cream.

  2. Alternatively, dress with sugar, cream, and a little nutmeg, omitting salt and pepper.

  3. Another option is to chop finely, add salt to taste, and work in a little cream or butter, then mold into round balls.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Clabbered milk
Its curdled proteins form the curd that becomes the cheese.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the dry curd.
Butter
Adds fat, giving a richer, smoother texture when worked into the curd.

The step that matters

Warming and cutting the curd. Turning and cutting the curd while warming it lets whey separate evenly. Heating too fast or stirring roughly can toughen the curd and trap whey, leaving the cheese wet or rubbery.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, pepper, cream, sugar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Cardamomfits less well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, cream, sugar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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