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Dessert

Steamed Apples

Steamed apples cooked with sugar syrup and citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Steamed Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sour apples

  1. Wipe, core, and peel the sour apples.

  2. Place them on a plate in a steamer and cook until tender.

  3. Strain the juice and mix with ½ cup sugar.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes, add 1 teaspoon lemon juice, and strain over the apples.

Cook the red apples

  1. For the red apples, cook them in boiling water until soft, turning often.

  2. Ensure the water surrounds the apples halfway.

  3. Carefully remove the skins to keep the red color.

  4. Add 1 cup sugar, grated rind of ½ lemon, and juice of 1 orange to the water.

  5. Simmer until the mixture reduces to 1 cup.

  6. Cool and pour over the apples.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Sour apples
Hold their shape when steamed and add tartness that balances the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, as it reduces, thickens it into a glaze.
Red apples
Soften in boiling water while their skins are kept to preserve the red color.
Apple juice
Provides liquid and fruit flavor for the sweet syrup poured over the apples.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the syrup.

The step that matters

Carefully remove the skins from the red apples. Red apple skins hold most of the pigment, so tearing or overcooking them can dull the red color and leave the flesh torn or uneven.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, orange):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, orange. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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