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Meat Dumplings. with Beans

A savory dish of beef and pork dumplings served with sautéed green beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Meat Dumplings. with Beans

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat mixture

  1. Mix beef, pork, butter, egg, cooked onion, salt, pepper, and bread crumbs until well combined.

Cook the beans and dumplings

  1. Heat 2 tablespoons butter in a kettle and add green beans with a little salt and summer savory; cook for a few minutes, stirring constantly.

  2. Add stock and vinegar to taste, sprinkle flour over beans, and boil for a few minutes.

  3. Push beans to the center of the kettle and form little oblong rolls of the meat mixture; place these around the beans.

  4. Cover the kettle and boil for 5 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the kettle in a preheated oven at 300°F (150°C) with a hot stone underneath for 1½ hours.

  2. Serve the dumplings arranged around the beans on a platter.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef and pork
Provide the main meaty body and richness of the dumplings.
Egg
Binds the meat mixture so the dumplings hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and soften the meat mixture for a tender texture.
Green beans
Form the vegetable base of the dish, cooked tender in butter and stock.
Flour
Thickens the stock around the beans into a light sauce.

The step that matters

Keeping the dumplings shaped while cooking. The meat mixture is soft and loose before cooking, so it can fall apart if the beans are stirred or the liquid boils hard. Forming the rolls firmly and simmering gently lets the egg and crumbs set the mixture.

Swap the green beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, butter, egg, onion, pepper, bread):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, butter, egg, onion, pepper, bread. 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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