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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the filling
Top and tail the gooseberries.
Place the gooseberries in a pot with a little water and stew until they break.
Sweeten the stewed gooseberries generously and let them cool.
Assemble and bake
Line a pie plate with the crust and brush it with egg white.
Fill the crust with the cooled stewed gooseberries and bake at 350°F (175°C), with or without a top crust.
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 filling's main body and tartness once stewed.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the stewed gooseberries, balancing their natural acidity.
- Pie crust
- Forms the base that holds the filling while it bakes.
- Egg white
- Brushed on the crust to help seal it against moisture from the filling.
The step that matters
Stewing the gooseberries until they break. Cooking the fruit until it softens and breaks down releases its pectin and juices, so the filling thickens and sets properly once cooled. Undercooked berries stay firm and can leave the filling loose or watery.
“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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