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
Boil the sweet milk in a saucepan.
Pour in sherry wine until the milk curdles.
Strain the mixture to collect the whey.
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 + winetop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,116 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (fenugreek, curry).
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Sherry + winetop 32% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together0 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sweet milk
- Provides the liquid and milk proteins that curdle to separate the whey.
- Sherry wine
- Its acidity curdles the hot milk, splitting it into curds and clear whey.
The step that matters
Pour in sherry wine until the milk curdles. Adding too much wine or acid can make the whey taste sour and the curds grainy, while too little leaves the milk unseparated. Adding the wine gradually and watching for curds lets you stop at the right point.
“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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