Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓
Rose Tart Shells
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Combine egg whites, sweet milk, lard, and salt in a bowl.
Add flour gradually until the dough is workable.
Roll the dough very thin and cut it with a cake cutter.
Shape the roses
Stack three layers together.
Wet the center of each layer with egg white.
Notch each layer in six places from the outside to the center with a knife.
Hold the layers together with a fork.
Fry and fill
Cook in boiling lard until golden brown.
Fill the center of each rose with jelly.
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour 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
- Egg whites
- Bind the layers together and add structure to the thin dough.
- Lard
- Adds fat and tenderness, and crisps the shells when fried.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture so the dough can be rolled out.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough so it holds its shape when rolled and fried.
The step that matters
Cook in boiling lard until golden brown. The lard must be hot enough to fry the shells quickly. If it is too cool, the dough absorbs fat and becomes greasy and heavy instead of crisp. Fry until golden so the shells are fully cooked and dry.
“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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