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
Make the curd
Set a gallon of clabbered milk on the stove or in the oven with the door open.
Turn the milk frequently and cut the curd into squares with a knife.
Stir gently until the mixture is warm to the touch and whey separates from the curd.
Drain and finish
Pour the mixture into a coarse bag and hang to drain in a cool place for 3 to 4 hours.
Once drained, turn the curd out of the bag and chop it coarsely.
Dress the cottage cheese with salt and sweet cream, or mash it thoroughly with the cream.
Alternatively, chop it finely, add salt to taste, work in a little butter, and mold into round balls.
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).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Clabbered milk
- Its acid-set proteins form the curd that becomes the cheese.
- Sweet cream
- Adds fat and richness, giving the curd a softer, creamier texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness when worked into the finely chopped curd.
The step that matters
Stir gently until warm and whey separates. Heating the curd gently helps it release whey without toughening. Stirring too hard or overheating can break the curd into small, rubbery pieces and leave the cheese dry.
“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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