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White-wine Whey

A whey made by curdling milk with raisin wine, then draining and sweetening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

White-wine Whey

Ingredients

Directions

Curdle the milk

  1. Heat the new milk in a saucepan until it boils.

  2. Pour in enough raisin wine to curdle the milk completely.

  3. Let it boil briefly, then remove from heat and allow the curd to settle without stirring.

  4. Carefully pour off the whey.

Sweeten and serve

  1. Add ½ pint of boiling water to the whey and sweeten with white sugar 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.

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. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

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

  4. Milk + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (fenugreek, curry).

  5. Raisin + winetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,324 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

New milk
Provides the milk proteins that clump into curds, separating from the liquid whey.
Raisin wine
Its acidity causes the milk proteins to curdle and separate from the whey.
White sugar
Adds sweetness to the finished whey.

The step that matters

Let the curd settle without stirring. Stirring breaks up the curds before they firm, so they stay cloudy in the whey and make it harder to pour off clear.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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