Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Flour and Milk
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the flour
Tie the flour in a cloth and immerse it in a saucepan of water.
Boil slowly for 10 to 12 hours.
Make the porridge
After drying, add 1 tablespoon of the grated cooked flour to 1 pint of milk.
Boil the mixture.
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 + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Milk
- Provides the liquid and creamy body of the porridge.
- Flour
- Its starch thickens the porridge as it cooks in liquid.
- Grated cooked flour
- Its starch thickens the milk when it is boiled.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture. Milk can scorch on the bottom of the pan while the starch thickens, so it should be stirred and kept at a gentle boil to avoid burning and lumps.
“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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