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Lemon Whey
1 cup milk 1 small lemon 1 teaspoon sugar Heat the milk; add the lemon and let it stand over the fire until the curd separates; strain; add the sugar and serve hot or cold.
A two-line invalid's drink that assumes you already know the proportions. The milk quantity has dropped out of the printed text, so the first job is to supply it.
- The missing milkNo quantity is given. Period sickroom recipes for lemon whey commonly use about a pint (2 cups) of milk to one small lemon, with the teaspoon of sugar added after straining.
- Heat, do not boilBring the milk to just below a simmer, around 180F, then add the lemon (the text does not say whether juiced or sliced). A hard boil after the acid goes in makes the curd tough and squeezes it dry, and the whey turns cloudy and thin-tasting.
- "Over the fire" means gentle heatHold it at that temperature off direct heat for five to ten minutes, until the curd has drawn together into distinct flakes and the liquid beneath is a clear pale yellow-green. It should not need longer.
- StrainingA fine sieve lined with a double layer of cheesecloth or a coffee filter gives clear whey. Do not press the curd through; let it drain.
- Milk choiceUse pasteurized whole milk. Skim milk gives a meagre curd and watery whey, and ultra-pasteurized milk sometimes refuses to separate cleanly because the proteins have already been heat-altered.
- The leftover curdWhat stays in the cloth is essentially a small quantity of fresh acid-set cheese. Salted, it is edible on toast, though this recipe is concerned only with the whey.
- YieldOn a pint of milk you can expect somewhere around a cup and a half of whey, one generous invalid's serving. It is best made as wanted; refrigerate any remainder promptly.
Whey drinks belong to the sickroom rather than the dining room, and their presence in a general cookbook reflects a time when nursing the ill at home was assumed to be the cook's job. Lemon whey, wine whey and mustard whey all appear in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century household manuals as light, easily swallowed nourishment for fever patients, on the reasoning that the curd, being the heavy part, had been removed. The technique is a very old one in dairying: acid plus warm milk separates casein from the liquid, the same action that produces paneer and other fresh curd cheeses made without rennet.