Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Cold Liver or Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Thicken the milk with flour.
Cut the liver or ham into bits.
Pour the thickened milk over the meat.
Heat the mixture until warmed through.
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + livertop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together288 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + livertop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,418 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that flour thickens into a smooth sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk into a sauce that coats the meat.
- Liver or ham
- Provides the main meaty flavor and substance of the dish.
“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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