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 ↓
Roman War Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
In a mixing bowl, combine Roman meal, graham meal, white flour, and salt.
Pour scalded milk (or hot potato or rice water) over the mixture.
Add the dissolved yeast cake and beat thoroughly for a few minutes.
Cover and place in a warm area to rise overnight.
Knead and shape
In the morning, add enough white flour to knead the dough.
Knead thoroughly and set aside to rise, covered, until doubled in size.
Shape into loaves and let rise again until twice the size.
Bake
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.
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
- Roman meal
- Provides the main body and structure of the loaf as the bulk of the flour.
- Graham meal
- Adds a coarser texture and nutty flavour along with extra structure from bran and germ.
- White flour
- Adds gluten-forming protein so the dough can stretch and hold its risen shape.
- Yeast cake
- Produces carbon dioxide during fermentation, which makes the dough rise and become airy.
- Scalded milk
- Adds moisture and softness, and its proteins help give the crumb a tender texture.
The step that matters
Kneading in the morning flour. The dough is wet after the overnight rise, so flour must be worked in until it is smooth and elastic. Thorough kneading develops gluten, which traps the gas from the yeast and lets the loaves rise well.
“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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