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Dessert

Rice Apple Dumpling

A dumpling made of boiled rice, eggs, butter, and apples, served with cream or vanilla sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Rice Apple Dumpling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Boil the rice until tender, then drain and season with butter and salt.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten eggs.

Assemble the dumplings

  1. Prepare squares of white muslin by dipping them in hot water and sprinkling with flour.

  2. Place 2 tablespoons of rice on each muslin square, spreading it out.

  3. In the center of the rice, place a peeled and cored apple.

  4. Fill the cavity of the apple with currant jelly and sugar or spice and sugar.

  5. Gather the corners of the muslin together and secure tightly with pins.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil or steam the dumplings for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with cream or vanilla 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.

  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 + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Rice
Forms the tender outer case that wraps and holds the apple together.
Eggs
Bind the cooked rice so it holds its shape around the apple.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the rice.
Apples
Provide the fruit filling that softens and turns sweet-tart during cooking.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour inside the apple cavity.

The step that matters

Gather and secure the muslin tightly. If the muslin is loose or the rice is unevenly spread, the dumpling can split or leak filling during boiling or steaming. A firm, even wrap keeps the rice case intact while the apple cooks through.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, egg, flour, apple, sugar, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, egg, flour, apple, sugar, cream. 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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