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Vinegar Whey

A whey made by curdling boiling milk with vinegar and adding fruit preserves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and currant work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Vinegar Whey

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Curdle the boiling milk by adding the vinegar.

  2. Stir in the currant jelly or preserved tamarinds or damsons.

  3. Strain off the whey from the curd.

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. Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Milk + vinegartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Its proteins curdle when acid is added, separating into curds and whey.
Vinegar
Its acidity curdles the milk proteins, creating the tart base of the drink.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour to the whey.

The step that matters

Curdle the boiling milk by adding the vinegar.. The vinegar must be added while the milk is boiling so the proteins coagulate cleanly. Adding it too little or too cold may leave the milk uncurdled, so the whey stays cloudy and weak in flavour.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, vinegar):

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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