Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Green Gooseberry Tart
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the filling
Place the gooseberries in a porcelain kettle with enough water to prevent burning.
Stew the gooseberries slowly until they break down.
Remove from heat, sweeten with sugar, and set aside to cool.
Assemble and bake
Pour the cooled mixture into the pastry shell.
Cover with the puff pastry top and brush with beaten egg.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden, about 3 minutes.
Serve
Serve cold.
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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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Gooseberries
- Provide the tart fruit filling, which softens into a pulp when stewed.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and balances the gooseberries' sharp acidity.
- Puff pastry top
- Bakes into a flaky, layered lid over the fruit filling.
- Beaten egg
- Gives the pastry top a glossy, golden browned finish.
The step that matters
Let the filling cool before pouring it into the shell. A hot filling softens the pastry and can melt the fat in the puff top before it bakes, leaving a soggy base and a less flaky lid.
“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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