Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Cottage Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Set a pan of sour milk over a kettle of hot water and heat slowly until the curd and whey separate.
Drain the curd well in a cloth and transfer it to an earthen dish.
Season the curd with a little coarse sea salt and butter.
Add milk or sweet cream until the mixture is moist enough.
If necessary, give the draining bag a few light squeezes to improve texture.
Stir the seasoning in well and form the curd into small balls or serve in one mold.
Store in a cool place.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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