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White Wine Whey

Whey made by boiling milk with sherry and currant wine, then sweetened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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White Wine Whey

Why it works: Sherry and currant work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

White Wine Whey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curd

  1. Boil the milk in a pan.

  2. When it rises, pour in the sherry and currant wine.

  3. Let it boil again, then remove from heat.

  4. After a few minutes, remove the curd.

Finish the whey

  1. Pour off the clear whey and sweeten 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.

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. Sherry + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

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

Milk
Provides the proteins that clump into curds, leaving clear whey behind.
Sherry
Its acidity curdles the milk, separating solid curd from liquid whey.
Currant wine
Adds more acidity to help curdle the milk and a fruity flavour to the whey.

The step that matters

Let it boil again, then remove from heat. Once the acid is added, the milk proteins are already clumping. A brief reboil firms the curds, while overboiling can toughen them and leave the whey cloudy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sherry, wine, 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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