He cut off a small piece of beef tallow and placed it in a flat-bottomed pan. Then, he poured in the half bag of flour he had treasured for so long. Kneading it by hand, he crumbled the solid tallow and mixed it thoroughly with the flour, forming a fine, crumbly shortcrust mixture.
"This is the simplest way to make shortcrust pastry in Western desserts. You can use it for cookies, pie crusts, mousse bases, flaky pastries, and so on."
He pressed the prepared dough into a ball. Since no water was added, the flour couldn't properly bind or develop gluten. It relied on the stickiness of the fat to hold together, which made it very easy to shape.
The only downside was its fragility; it fell apart at the slightest touch.
He grabbed a piece of birch bark he had cleaned and set aside earlier out of boredom, fashioning it into a round mold. Then, he lifted the lid of the earth oven previously used for roasting duck in the yard and tossed in some embers to preheat it.
