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Renter Whey

Liquid byproduct of curdled milk made with rennet and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Renter Whey

Ingredients

Directions

Set the curd

  1. Heat the milk until lukewarm.

  2. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.

  3. Add the rennet and leave in a moderately warm place until firm, about 20 minutes.

Strain and serve

  1. Break the curd and strain through double cheesecloth.

  2. Flavor if desired.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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
Provides the milk proteins that clot into the curd.
Rennet
Enzyme that clots the milk proteins, turning the milk into a firm curd.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the mild curd.

The step that matters

Leaving the milk to set until firm. Rennet clots milk best when the milk is held at a steady, moderately warm temperature. Rushing the set or letting the milk get too hot can leave a weak or grainy curd, so wait until it is firm before breaking it.

“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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