Name: Steamed Apple Dumplings
Ingredients: good-sized apples; pie crust dough; flour; sweetened cream

Why it works: Flour and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Steamed Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

good-sized apples
pie crust dough
flour
sweetened cream

Directions

Peel and core the apples.
Roll out a piece of pie crust dough large enough to cover one apple.
Place an apple on the dough and wrap it around the apple.
Roll each dumpling in flour.
Steam the dumplings for one hour.
Serve with sweetened cream.

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.

Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,481 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Apple + flourtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,140 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,089 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).