Why it works: Cream and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓
Cottage Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Drain the curd
Pour off the whey from the clabber and place it in a pointed muslin bag to drain for 12 hours.
After draining, transfer the curd to a dish and mash it until very smooth with a spoon.
Finish and serve
Pour in enough rich cream to achieve a consistency similar to thin mush.
Season with coarse sea salt to taste and set aside in a cool place until tea time.
Serve in a glass dish and sprinkle a little pepper over the top.
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.
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Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together21,449 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
- Clabber
- Its curd forms the body of the cheese once the whey is drained away.
- Rich cream
- Adds fat and moisture, loosening the curd to a soft, spreadable texture.
The step that matters
Draining the clabber. Whey must drain fully from the curd; leftover liquid makes the cheese watery and loose. Draining too little leaves the texture thin, while the curd needs to be mashed smooth before cream is added so it blends evenly.
“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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