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 ↓
Salt Rising Bread
Ingredients
Directions
In a bowl, mix a pinch of salt and baking soda.
Pour in 1 cup of boiling water and let it cool until warm.
Stir in enough shortening to make a thick batter.
Keep the batter in a warm place overnight.
In the morning, place 2 quarts of flour in a bread bowl.
Add 1 cup of boiling water and cool it with 1 cup of fresh milk.
Stir in the batter and let it rise.
Once light, knead into loaves and let rise again before baking.
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
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