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 ↓
A Plain Crust for Pork Pies
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Combine lard and water or milk in a pot.
Heat the mixture until boiling.
Gradually mix in flour to form a paste.
Knead the paste well with your hands until thoroughly combined.
Shape
Keep the paste warm while shaping it into pies.
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).
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
- Lard
- Provides fat that shortens the dough, giving it a tender, crumbly texture.
- Water or milk
- Hydrates the flour and melts the lard, forming a pliable paste.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the crust once mixed with the hot liquid and fat.
The step that matters
Gradually mix in flour to form a paste. Adding flour gradually to the hot liquid and fat lets it absorb evenly, preventing lumps. Keeping the paste warm matters because cooled lard stiffens and the dough becomes hard to shape.
“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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