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Alum Whey

A curdled whey made by boiling milk with alum, then seasoning with nutmeg and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Alum Whey

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the milk with the alum until it curdles.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add grated nutmeg and syrup of cloves to taste.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Milk + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Nutmeg + syruptop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together523 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + syruptop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 clump into curds, leaving the watery whey behind.
Alum
Its acidity makes the milk proteins clump and separate from the liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the milk with the alum until it curdles. Heat and the acidic alum cause the milk proteins to clump. Once the milk has curdled, keep the heat moderate, since prolonged boiling can toughen the curds and make the whey taste cooked.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, nutmeg, syrup. 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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