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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 or fowls.

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 fine lard and fresh dripping or butter.

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

  3. Knead the paste well and roll it out with a rolling pin.

  4. Place the paste in a cloth or under a pan to soak until nearly cold.

Shape the pie

  1. Cut the paste into top and bottom pieces for the pie, and a long piece for the sides.

  2. Cement the bottom to the sides with beaten egg, pinching them together.

  3. If using a tin form, butter it before adding the paste.

  4. Fill the pie and place the top on, pinching the edges to seal.

  5. Brush the top with beaten egg before baking.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake after filling.

  2. Return to the oven for 15 minutes if needed.

  3. Remove the tin carefully after baking.

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

Lard
Adds richness and helps make the paste tender and workable.
Fresh dripping or butter
Adds fat and flavour, keeping the crust tender and rich.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the paste its structure.
Water
Melts the fat and hydrates the flour so the paste can be shaped.
Egg
Acts as a glue to seal the pie pieces and browns the crust when brushed on top.

The step that matters

Soak the paste until nearly cold. The hot-water paste is soft and hard to shape. Letting it cool and stiffen makes it firm enough to cut, raise and hold its walls without slumping.

“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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