Why it works: Milk and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,479 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓
Wine Whey
Ingredients
Directions
Make the whey
Sweeten the milk to taste.
Heat the milk until it reaches boiling point.
Pour in the sherry wine.
Let it simmer until a curd forms.
Strain through a muslin cloth in a colander.
Allow to cool.
Serve
Serve in a cup with wafers on the saucer.
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 + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,479 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + winetop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,116 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (fenugreek, curry).
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Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,141 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together9,581 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
- Forms the base liquid that the wine curdles into the curd and whey.
- Sherry wine
- Its acidity curdles the hot milk, separating curds from the clear whey.
The step that matters
Let it simmer until a curd forms. Adding wine to hot milk makes the proteins clump into curds. If the milk is not heated enough or the wine is not added, the curds will not separate and the whey will stay cloudy.
“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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