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Apple Farcies

Apples stuffed with minced goose or duck, egg, shallot, bread crumbs, sage, pepper, and salt, baked and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apple Farcies

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Pare the apples and scoop a large piece from the stalk end.

  3. Mince the poultry and shallot.

Fill and bake

  1. Combine the minced poultry, shallot, egg, bread crumbs, sage, pepper, and salt to make a forcemeat.

  2. Fill the apples with the forcemeat.

  3. Bake the filled apples for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with a rich gravy poured over them.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Shallot + sagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apple + sagetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Hold the forcemeat and soften during baking while keeping their shape as a edible vessel.
Goose or duck
Provides rich flavour and fat that moistens the forcemeat as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the minced poultry and crumbs together so the forcemeat holds its shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and fat, giving the forcemeat a softer, lighter texture.

The step that matters

Filling the apples. Packing the forcemeat firmly without tearing the apple flesh keeps the stuffing in place. Loose filling can fall out and dry or scorch during baking.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, shallot, bread, sage, pepper):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Red currantfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, shallot, bread, sage, pepper. 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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