Name: Very Superior Suet-crust
Ingredients: 1 pound all-purpose flour; 8 ounces fresh veal or beef kidney suet, chopped; 2 ounces butter; 4 teaspoons coarse sea salt; ½ cup pure-flavored lard, oil, or butter (optional for smoothing)

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 ↓

Very Superior Suet-crust

Ingredients

1 pound all-purpose flour
8 ounces fresh veal or beef kidney suet, chopped
2 ounces butter
4 teaspoons coarse sea salt
½ cup pure-flavored lard, oil, or butter (optional for smoothing)

Directions

Prepare the suet

Remove the skin from the suet and chop it finely.
Place the chopped suet in a mortar with a small amount of lard, oil, or butter and pound until smooth.

Make the dough

In a bowl, combine the flour, pounded suet, butter, and salt.
Work the mixture with your fingers until it forms a dough.

Use the crust

Use this dough as a crust for hot pies or tarts.

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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Flour + vealtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,886 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 structure of the dough once mixed with fat and water.
Suet: Adds richness and fat that keeps the crust tender and flaky.
Butter: Adds flavor and fat that helps the dough hold together.

The step that matters

Pounding the suet until smooth. Suet left in lumps stays uneven in the dough. Pounding it smooth with a little fat spreads it evenly through the flour, so the crust bakes consistently.

“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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Very Superior Suet-crust