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Paste for Mutton or Raised Pies

A pastry dough made with flour, salt, butter or lard, and boiling water for mutton or raised pies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Paste for Mutton or Raised Pies

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the flour and salt on a clean surface, making a well in the center.

  2. Add the butter or lard into the well.

  3. Pour the boiling water over the butter and mix until dissolved.

  4. Knead the mixture until very stiff and smooth, adding a little flour if necessary.

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.

  1. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Forms the main structure of the dough, which sets firm as it is kneaded and holds its shape.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and keeps it short and crumbly rather than tough.
Boiling water
Melts the fat into the flour and gelatinizes starch, making the dough pliable enough to shape while hot.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling water over the butter and mixing until dissolved. The water must be at a full boil so it melts the fat and cooks some of the starch. Water that is not hot enough leaves lumps of fat and a crumbly dough that is hard to shape and knead smooth.

“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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