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Drink

Tamarind Whey

A drink made by simmering tamarind in boiling milk and sweetening with sugar.

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

Why it works: Tamarind and sugar work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 362 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Tamarind Whey

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Put the tamarinds into the boiling milk.

  2. Simmer until the whey appears.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Sweeten with sugar.

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. Tamarind + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Tamarind + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

Tamarinds
Its acidity curdles the milk, separating the whey and giving a tart flavour.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that curdles into whey and curds when the tamarind acid is added.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sourness of the tamarind.

The step that matters

Simmer until the whey appears. Simmer only until the whey separates from the curds. Overheating toughens the curds and makes the drink grainy, while stopping early leaves the tamarind acid unable to fully curdle the milk.

Swap the tamarind

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Tamarindthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar. 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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