Why it works: Milk and white wine work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 929 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓
Wine Whey
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the milk in a saucepan.
Add the white wine and let it sit undisturbed until it curdles.
Once the curd has settled, strain it through a fine mesh.
Sweeten the whey to your taste.
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.
-
Milk + white winetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together929 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
-
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
White wine + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,586 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Forms the curds when acidified, and the liquid whey that remains is the base of the drink.
- White wine
- Its acidity causes the milk proteins to coagulate, separating curds from the whey.
The step that matters
Letting the milk curdle undisturbed. Stirring or moving the pan while the wine acts can break up forming curds, leaving a cloudier whey and fine particles that are hard to strain out. Leaving it still lets the curds firm up and settle.
“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.
More wine whey recipes
You might also like
Raisin Wine64 recipes
Egg Wine58 recipes
Elderberry Wine51 recipes
Rhubarb Wine51 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.