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Dessert

Green Apple Sauce

A sauce made from stewed green apples, sugar, butter, cream, and nutmeg, served warm with roast gosling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Green Apple Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, combine the sliced apples and water.

  2. Add the sugar and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the apples are soft and pulpy.

  3. Once the apples are stewed, stir in the butter, cream, and nutmeg until well combined.

Serve

  1. Serve warm with roast gosling.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green apples
Break down into a soft, pulpy base that forms the body of the sauce.
White sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the tartness of the green apples.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rounded mouthfeel and richer flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a silkier texture to the stewed apples.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter, cream, and nutmeg. Cold dairy added to hot apples can separate or curdle if the mixture is not stirred well. Stir steadily until fully combined to keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, cream, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cream, nutmeg. 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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