Why it works: Butter and flour 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 Pie Crust
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the flour, lard, and salt in a bowl.
Add the water and mix until combined.
Gently fold in the butter without overmixing.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Forms the structure of the crust once mixed with liquid.
- Butter
- Creates flaky layers as pieces melt and steam during baking.
- Lard
- Shortens gluten strands, giving the crust a tender, crumbly texture.
- Water
- Hydrates the flour so the dough holds together.
The step that matters
Gently fold in the butter without overmixing. Overmixing develops gluten and warms the fat, making the crust tough and greasy instead of flaky. Cold butter left in visible pieces melts during baking and creates steam pockets.
“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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