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Dessert

Bombay Creams, Iced

A chilled savory cream made with onion, tomato, chutney, spices, egg yolks, meat, and whipped cream, served in paper cases.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Bombay Creams, Iced

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Fry the minced onion in hot butter until golden, then drain.

  2. Add the tomato pulp, mulligatawny paste, Bombay chutney, white stock, cayenne, grated lemon, and nutmeg. Cook until smooth.

Finish the filling

  1. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve, then stir in the egg yolks, chopped egg whites, minced white meat, and yellow coloring.

  2. Gently fold in the whipped cream.

Fill, garnish and chill

  1. Fill small paper cases with the mixture, allowing it to rise above the edges.

  2. Garnish with shredded chilies, chopped pistachios, and French gherkins.

  3. Chill the cases in the ice cave for 30 minutes.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Egg yolks
Enrich and set the filling, giving it a rich, smooth body when chilled.
White meat
Provides the main bulk and savoury body of the filling.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and softness, making the filling airy rather than dense.
Butter
Carries the flavour of the onion and adds richness to the base.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savoury foundation as it browns in the butter.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the whipped cream. Stiffly whipped cream holds air that gives the filling its lightness. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a dense, heavy texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, tomato, pepper, lemon, nutmeg, egg, meat):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, tomato, pepper, lemon, nutmeg, egg, meat. 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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