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 ↓
Pork-Pie Crust
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Boil the water in a saucepan.
Stir in the clarified suet, butter, and salt until melted.
Pour the hot mixture into a bowl with the flour.
Work the mixture into a stiff paste, adding water if necessary.
Turn it out onto a cold pastry slab and roll it out to ¾ inch thick.
Let the rolled dough cool completely.
Prepare the tin
Butter the pie tin.
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
- Well-dried flour
- Provides the structure that holds the stiff paste together once it sets.
- Clarified suet
- Adds fat that makes the crust tender and rich, and helps it hold its shape.
- Fresh butter
- Adds fat and flavor, contributing to a tender, rich texture.
The step that matters
Work the mixture into a stiff paste, adding water if necessary.. Hot water and fat must be worked into the flour evenly; too little water leaves the dough crumbly, while too much makes it sticky and hard to shape. Adding water only as needed keeps the paste firm enough to hold its 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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