Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Fresh Pork Pot-pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pork
Boil the sparerib after removing all fat and cracking the bones until tender.
Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.
Season the broth with salt and pepper once tender.
Thicken the gravy with a little flour half an hour before serving.
In another kettle, remove all bones and most of the gravy.
Make the crust
Mix a small amount of butter into a light dough.
Roll the dough out thin.
Cut the dough into small square cakes.
Set the dough cakes aside until very light.
Assemble and cook
Leave enough gravy to cover the pot half an inch above the rim.
Cover the pot tightly.
Boil steadily for 45 minutes, ensuring no steam escapes.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Sparerib
- Provides the meat and rendered flavor that the gravy and pie are built on.
- Flour
- Thickens the gravy so it holds together rather than running thin.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness to the light dough crust.
The step that matters
Thicken the gravy with a little flour half an hour before serving. Flour needs to simmer for a while to swell and cook out its raw taste; adding it too late leaves the gravy pasty or floury and too thin to hold the crust.
“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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