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 ↓
Cottage Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Make the curd
Heat the loppered milk very slowly in a bowl until the curd separates from the whey.
Pour the curd into a sieve or colander lined with coarse muslin or mosquito-netting to drain.
Gather the cloth into a bag and squeeze out any remaining whey.
Set the curds in a cold place until ready to use.
Finish the cheese
Work the curds with a little butter and cream, adding salt to taste.
Stir and shape the mixture until it reaches the consistency of Brie cheese.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Loppered milk
- Its natural souring causes the proteins to coagulate into the curd that forms the cheese.
- Cream
- Adds fat and richness, making the curds softer and smoother.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a richer mouthfeel and a softer, creamier texture.
The step that matters
Heating the loppered milk very slowly. Gentle heat lets the curd separate cleanly from the whey. Heating too fast can toughen the curds and make them grainy, so the cheese turns out less smooth.
“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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