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Raised Crust for Meat-pies, or Fowls, &C

A raised crust made from water, lard, butter, flour, and egg for sealing meat pies, fowls, and similar dishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Raised Crust for Meat-pies, or Fowls, &C

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Boil water with lard and dripping or butter.

  2. While hot, mix in enough flour to form a stiff, smooth paste.

  3. Knead and beat the paste with a rolling pin until smooth.

  4. Let a lump of the paste soak in a cloth or under a pan until nearly cold.

Shape the pie

  1. Roll the paste to the desired thickness and cut out the top and bottom for the pie.

  2. Cut a long piece for the sides and attach the bottom to the sides using egg.

  3. Pinch the edges together and fill the pie with your desired filling.

  4. Place the top crust on and pinch it to the side crust.

  5. If using a tin form, butter it before adding the paste and bake.

  6. Brush the crust with beaten egg before baking.

Bake

  1. After baking, carefully remove the tin and return to the oven for 15 minutes if needed.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Flour
Forms the stiff paste that gives the crust its structure and shape.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the paste tender and short when cooled.
Dripping or butter
Adds fat and flavour to the paste, improving texture and richness.
Water
Melts the fat and hydrates the flour so the paste can be worked.
Egg
Seals the pastry edges and browns the crust when brushed on.

The step that matters

Mix the flour into the hot water and fat. The paste must be worked while hot so the starch gelatinises and the dough stays pliable. Once cool it stiffens, making it hard to shape without cracking.

“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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