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Stuffing for a Goose

A sweet and aromatic stuffing made with prunes, apples, sugar, corn starch, and anise seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and anise work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Stuffing for a Goose

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the prunes

  1. Wash the prunes in cold water and place them in a saucepan with enough cold water to cover. Cook until soft but not breaking, about 15 minutes.

  2. Stir in 3 tablespoons of sugar into the prunes 15 minutes before they are done.

Cook the apples

  1. In a separate saucepan, combine the sliced apples, ⅓ cup of water, and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Cook until soft.

  2. Mix 2 teaspoons of corn starch with a little cold water and stir it into the apples. Cook for 4 minutes.

Combine and flavour

  1. Measure 1½ pints of the cooked apples and 1½ pints of the prunes into a large bowl.

  2. Rub off the little stems from 1½ tablespoons of anise seed, sift it, and mix it with the apples and prunes.

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. Corn + anisetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Apple + anisetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Apple + corntop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Dried prunes
Soften during cooking and provide the main body and sweetness of the stuffing.
Sour apples
Break down into a tart, soft base that balances the sweetness of the prunes.
Corn starch
Thickens the cooked apples so the stuffing holds its texture rather than running.
White granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and rounds out the tartness of the apples.

The step that matters

Adding the corn starch to the apples. Cornstarch must be mixed with cold water first so it does not clump, then cooked briefly so its starch swells and thickens the apples evenly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, corn, anise):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn, anise. 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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