Why it works: Flour and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,140 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Apple Dumpling
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Mix the suet, flour, and salt as for pie crust.
Roll out the crust and place the apples in the center.
Bring the four corners of the crust together and pinch well to seal.
Tie tightly in a well-floured cloth.
Cook and serve
Boil in water for 1½ hours.
Serve with any kind of pudding sauce.
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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Flour + appletop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,140 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Kidney suet
- Fat that keeps the crust tender and flaky as it cooks.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the crust that wraps the apples.
- Apples
- Provide the filling, softening and turning tender as they cook in the crust.
The step that matters
Pinch the crust well to seal. A tight seal keeps the apples enclosed and stops boiling water from soaking into the filling. Tying the cloth tightly also helps the dumpling hold its shape while it cooks.
“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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