Name: Feuilletage, Ob Puff Paste
Ingredients: 1 pound all-purpose flour; ½ teaspoon salt; 1 small piece of butter (about the size of a walnut); Juice of ½ lemon; Cold water (as needed); ¾ pound butter (for laminating)

Why it works: Walnut and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,149 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Feuilletage, Ob Puff Paste

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

1 pound all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 small piece of butter (about the size of a walnut)
Juice of ½ lemon
Cold water (as needed)
¾ pound butter (for laminating)

Directions

Sift the flour onto a clean surface and form a well in the center.
Add salt, walnut-sized butter, and lemon juice into the well.
Mix in enough cold water to form a smooth paste and let it rest for 10 minutes.
Wash the ¾ pound of butter in iced water, knead it in a cloth, and shape it into a square.
Flour the surface, roll out the paste into a square larger than the butter, and roll the edges thinner than the center.
Place the butter in the center, fold the edges over to cover it completely, and flatten gently with a rolling pin.
Roll out to about ⅓ inch thick, keep it in an oblong shape, and fold it in thirds (this is a turn).
Roll out again and fold as before, then chill for 10 minutes.
Repeat the turning process three or four more times, allowing it to rest for 10 minutes between each turn.
Roll out and use as needed.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,149 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,832 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, walnut):

Raisinfits better
Coconutfits better
Figfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, walnut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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Feuilletage, Ob Puff Paste