[rich weyand]

Always put compound on both sides of any gap you are sealing, so that would be both the metal flange and the gasket, then seat the gasket to the flange. That seating process will mate compound to compound, which is what you want.

I used TiteSeal (which is a non-hardening gasket seal product the fly-boys use) on both sides of my valve cover gaskets, so I had four surfaces to coat on each side.