Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓
Flour-ball
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the flour
Tie the flour tightly in a strong pudding bag.
Boil the bag in a saucepan of water for 2 hours.
When cold, remove the bag and cut away the soft outer covering.
Grate the hard, baked interior to powder.
Make the curd
Mix the powder with 1 tablespoon of milk to form a smooth paste.
Add a second tablespoon of milk, stirring until creamy.
Heat 1 pint of milk in a separate pot until warm.
Stir in 2 teaspoons of Fairchild’s essence of pepsin and let it stand until firm.
Beat the curd with a fork until finely divided and strain.
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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Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,418 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,373 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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
- Wheat flour
- Its dried, baked crumb absorbs milk and forms the thick body of the paste.
- Milk
- Supplies the liquid that turns the flour into a paste and the proteins that set into curd.
- Pepsin essence
- An enzyme that clots milk protein into a firm curd.
The step that matters
Let the milk stand until firm. Pepsin only sets milk into curd when the milk is warm and left undisturbed. Stirring or cooling too early stops the milk from firming, and the curd stays loose.
“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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