Why it works: Pepper and caraway work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 291 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Cottage Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Pour milk into a pan and place it in a cool room with fresh air. Do not cover the pan.
If the room is dusty, cover the pan with cheesecloth supported by sticks.
When the milk thickens, place the pan in a larger pan with warm water and keep it warm until the curd separates without hardening.
Line a colander with cheesecloth and pour the milk into it. Let it drain for several hours until the whey is completely removed.
Finely chop green peppers or onions and mix them with the cheese. Add a little salt and pepper.
Serve with apple or potato salad, or spread on sandwiches. Optionally, add sugar and caraway seeds instead of onion and pepper.
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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Pepper + carawaytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together291 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + carawaytop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together647 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Sugar + carawaytop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,409 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together26,984 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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
Swap the caraway
The recipe marks caraway as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, pepper, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Clovefits better
- Carawaythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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