Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Meat Pie
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 filling
Boil the cold meat in water until tender.
Add flour to create enough gravy to fill the pie dish; season with salt and pepper.
Make the crust
For the crust, rub butter or lard into the flour.
Mix in baking powder and enough water or milk to form a dough.
Roll out the dough, grease it with butter, sprinkle with flour, and roll again.
Divide the dough in half for the bottom and top crusts.
Bake
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 to 40 minutes.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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).
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Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,594 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Meat + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,703 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Thickens the meat juices into a gravy and gives the crust structure.
- Butter or lard
- Rubbed into flour to make the crust tender and flaky by coating flour particles.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the dough, helping the crust rise and lighten as it bakes.
- Cold meat
- Provides the savory filling, becoming tender when simmered in water.
The step that matters
Rubbing fat into the flour. If the fat is over-worked or melts into the flour, the crust turns tough rather than tender. Rubbing it in until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs keeps the fat in separate pockets that create flaky layers.
“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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