Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Pastry for Chicken Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Chill the bowl, chopping knife, butter, and flour before starting.
Chop the butter into the flour until the bits are the size of peas.
Pour in the iced water and mix with the chopping knife to form a rough paste.
Turn the mixture out onto a board, including any butter scraps.
Roll out the paste into a sheet about ½ inch thick, lightly flouring as needed.
Fold the dough in thirds, with the rough edges facing you, and roll out again.
Repeat this folding and rolling process three times, handling the pastry minimally.
Refrigerate the pastry for at least 1 hour before using.
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 + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
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