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Drink

Wine-Whey

A drink made by curdling skimmed milk with wine, water, sugar, and balm or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,832 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Wine-Whey

Ingredients

Directions

Curdle the milk

  1. Combine the skimmed milk and white wine in a basin.

  2. Let it stand for a few minutes.

  3. Pour the boiling water over the mixture.

  4. Let it sit until the curd forms and settles at the bottom.

Strain and sweeten

  1. Pour the whey into a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and the balm or lemon slice.

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.

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. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Milk + white winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together929 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Skimmed milk
Provides the milk proteins that clot into the soft curd.
White wine
Its acidity helps the milk proteins clot and separate from the liquid.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the finished whey.

The step that matters

Let it sit until the curd forms and settles at the bottom. The acid and heat need time to make the milk proteins clot fully. Pouring off the whey too early leaves cloudy liquid with little curd separated out.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, white 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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