Why it works: Milk and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Warm the milk until it is just below boiling.
Add enough rennet to curdle the milk and cover it.
Let it sit until the curd is formed, then gently press down the curd with a skimming dish.
Transfer the curd to a vat lined with cheese cloth, squeezing it down as you add more curd.
Leave the curd about 3 inches above the edge of the vat and cover it with the cheese cloth.
Salt the curd in the vat after the whey has drained.
Place a board under and over the vat, then put it in a press.
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 + cheesetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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