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Dessert

Apple Dumplings

A dumpling made with grated potatoes and a whole apple inside, boiled until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and apple work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 603 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings

makes 10-12 dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Wash and boil the potatoes until tender, then grate them.

  2. Mix the grated potatoes with enough flour to form a dough.

  3. Add water and coarse sea salt to the dough as needed.

Form and cook

  1. Roll out the dough and place an apple in the center of each piece.

  2. Wrap the dough around the apples to form dumplings.

  3. Place the dumplings in a pot of boiling water and cook for 30 minutes.

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. Potato + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Grated cooked potato gives the dough moisture and a tender, soft texture.
Flour
Binds the grated potato into a workable dough that holds its shape around the apples.
Apples
Fill each dumpling and soften as they cook, adding sweetness and moisture.

The step that matters

Wrapping the dough around the apples. If the dough is torn or thin in places, the filling can leak out during boiling and the dumpling may fall apart. Sealing the dough fully keeps the apple enclosed while the starch in the dough sets as it cooks.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour. 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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