Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Pie Plant 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
Wash and peel the pie plant, then cut it into 1-inch pieces.
Place the pieces in a granite pan, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil.
Drain the water and mix the pie plant with sugar and flour.
Assemble and bake
Line a pie plate with the crust, fill it with the pie plant mixture, and cover with a thin crust, making slashes for steam to escape.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the crust is a delicate brown.
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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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pie plant
- Forms the tart, juicy filling that gives the pie its main body and flavor.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart pie plant and helps balance its acidity.
- Flour
- Thickens the juices released by the pie plant so the filling sets rather than running.
- Pie crust
- Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the pie's structure.
The step that matters
Drain the water after boiling. Pie plant releases a lot of liquid as it cooks. Draining it before adding sugar and flour keeps the filling from becoming watery and helps the flour thicken it properly.
“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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