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Drink

Wike Whey

A sweetened whey drink flavored with Madeira or Sherry, thickened with cornmeal and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,479 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Wike Whey

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil 1 pint of new milk in a porcelain saucepan until it puffs up.

  2. Add ⅓ cup of Madeira or Sherry and sweeten with loaf sugar to taste.

  3. In another pot, bring 1 pint of water to a boil.

  4. Slowly stir in 2 tablespoons of fine cornmeal and cook until done.

  5. Season with a little salt and sugar, then grate nutmeg over the top.

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. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  5. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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
Forms the body of the drink, adding richness and a creamy texture.
Madeira or sherry
Adds fortified wine flavour and aroma, with a mild sweetness.
Fine cornmeal
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells and sets during cooking.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the wine and the milk.

The step that matters

Slowly stir in the cornmeal. Cornmeal starch clumps if dumped in at once. Adding it slowly while stirring spreads the granules evenly, so they thicken smoothly when heated.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sherry, 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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