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
Heat the milk in a pan until it is just about to boil.
Pour in the sherry or champagne and bring it back to just boiling.
Strain the mixture through fine muslin.
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.
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Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,479 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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 solid curds and liquid whey.
- Sherry or champagne
- Its acidity causes the milk proteins to coagulate, separating the curds from the whey.
The step that matters
Bringing the mixture back to just boiling. Boiling too hard can toughen and over-break the curds, while too little heat may leave the milk unseparated. Heating gently until just boiling lets the curds form clearly so the whey strains off cleanly.
“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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