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White Wine Whey

A whey product made by heating milk, adding white wine and sugar, then boiling until curd forms, and straining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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White Wine Whey

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 ↓

White Wine Whey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curds

  1. Pour the milk into a deep pan and heat it on the fire.

  2. When scum rises to the edge, add the white wine and sugar.

  3. Allow it to boil while stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat when curd forms a lump.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the whey through a sieve or muslin.

  2. Serve cold or tepid.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

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

  3. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 proteins that coagulate into curds, which separate from the liquid whey.
White wine
Its acidity helps the milk proteins curdle, separating curds from the clear whey.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the wine.

The step that matters

Remove from heat when curd forms a lump. Boiling too long toughens the curds and makes them grainy, while removing too early leaves the milk unseparated and the whey cloudy. Watch for the lump to form and then take the pan off the heat.

“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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