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Meat Pies and Puddings

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 ↓

Meat Pies and Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Make a well in the center of the flour.

  2. Add the egg yolk, salt, butter, and a little water into the well.

  3. Gradually mix in the flour using your fingers, rubbing the butter into the flour.

  4. Add more water as needed until the mixture is smooth and elastic.

  5. Sprinkle the paste with a little water and work it on a surface for a few minutes.

  6. Flatten the remaining butter and place it on the rolled-out paste.

  7. Fold the sides of the paste over the butter to cover it completely.

  8. Dust the paste and surface with flour, shape it into a square about 10 inches on each side, and let it cool for 10 minutes.

  9. Roll the cooled square into a rectangle about 2 feet long and 10 inches wide, keeping the edges square.

  10. Fold the paste into thirds, turn it half round, and roll it out again, keeping the edges square.

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. Egg + flourtop 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

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