Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Pie-plant Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Wipe the pie-plant clean without removing the skin.
Chop the pie-plant into pieces the size of peas.
In a bowl, combine the chopped pie-plant, sugar, cold water, and flour, and stir together until well combined.
Bake the pie
Pour the filling between two pie crusts and bake.
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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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pie-plant
- Provides the tart flavour and bulk of the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart pie-plant and helps balance its acidity.
- Flour
- Thickens the juices released by the pie-plant so the filling sets rather than running.
- Pie crusts
- Enclose the filling and form its structure while baking.
The step that matters
Stirring in the flour. Flour must be evenly mixed through the chopped pie-plant so it can absorb the released juices and thicken the filling. Unmixed flour can leave pockets of raw starch and a runny or uneven filling.
“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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