Name: Boiled Apple Dumplings
Ingredients: small coarse cloth; flour; water; apples; sweet sauce

Why it works: Flour and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,078 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Flour a small coarse cloth and dip it in hot water.
Place the apples in the center of the cloth and tie it securely, leaving room for the dumpling to swell.
Boil a pot of water and add the dumplings.
Cook for 45 minutes.
Serve with sweet sauce.

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.

Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,078 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,140 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + saucetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together965 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).