Name: Crust for Chicken or Any Meat Pie
Ingredients: 2 cups flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 cup sweet milk; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons lard

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Crust for Chicken or Any Meat Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.
Stir in sweet milk until smooth.
Add butter and lard, mixing until combined.

Bake

Pour the mixture over the chicken and bake for about 20 minutes.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Provides the main structure of the crust as its starch and gluten set.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the crust rises and stays light.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender, flaky texture.
Lard: Adds fat that keeps the crust tender and helps it brown.
Sweet milk: Provides moisture that hydrates the flour into a smooth dough.

“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.