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Curds and Cream

Curds and Cream is a dish made by curdling milk with rennet, draining whey, molding curds, topping with comfits, and adding sweetened cream with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Curds and Cream

Why it works: Cream and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,920 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Curds and Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curds

  1. Add ½ tablespoon rennet to 2 quarts of fresh milk.

  2. Let the mixture sit until curds form, then drain off the whey.

Shape and serve

  1. Fill a mold with the curd and let it stand for 1–2 hours.

  2. Turn the curd out of the mold.

  3. Strew colored comfits over the curd.

  4. Sweeten some cream, mix in grated nutmeg, and pour it around 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.

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. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the curd body once rennet coagulates its proteins.
Rennet
Enzyme that sets the milk into soft curds and separates the whey.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty texture around the curd.

The step that matters

Let the mixture sit until curds form. Rennet needs time and a calm, undisturbed milk to set into firm curds. Stirring or moving the milk too early can break the forming curd, leaving a grainy or loose result.

“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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