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 a Large Pie or Pasty
Ingredients
Directions
In a large bowl, combine the flour, eggs, butter, and shredded suet.
Dissolve the suet in boiling water until it reaches the consistency of lard.
Add enough of the boiling water to the mixture to form a light crust.
Work the dough well and roll it out.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the main structure of the dough.
- Eggs
- Add richness and help bind the dough together.
- Unsalted butter
- Adds fat that makes the crust tender and flaky.
- Shredded suet
- Adds fat that keeps the crust tender and light.
The step that matters
Add enough of the boiling water to the mixture to form a light crust.. Adding too much boiling water makes the dough sticky and tough, while too little leaves it crumbly and hard to roll. Working the dough only as much as needed keeps the crust tender.
“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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