Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Pork Pie Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
In a bowl, mix the flour and salt together.
In a saucepan, heat the lard with the milk until hot and the lard is melted.
Make the paste
Mix the hot lard and milk into the flour.
Use the paste while warm.
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 + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 structure of the paste as its starch and proteins set around the liquid.
- Lard
- Adds fat that keeps the paste short and tender when it cools.
- Milk
- Supplies moisture that combines with the flour to make a workable dough.
The step that matters
Use the paste while warm. Lard and milk heated together make a paste that becomes firm and hard to shape as it cools. Working with it while warm keeps it pliable, so it can be pressed and shaped 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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