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Dessert

Dutch Flummery

Dutch Flummery is a sweet, gelatinous dessert made from isinglass, wine, lemon, sugar, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,832 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Dutch Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil isinglass in water very gently for 30 minutes.

  2. Add white wine, lemon juice, lemon rind, and rub sugar on another lemon to extract essence.

  3. Mix in enough sugar to make it sweet.

Thicken and set

  1. Beat the egg yolks and combine with the mixture, then heat gently while stirring.

  2. Pour into a bowl and stir until half cold.

  3. Let it settle, then shape it into a melon shape.

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. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. White wine + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,586 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Isinglass
Gelling agent that sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly as it cools.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the mixture when gently heated, adding body and a rich texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the set jelly and balances the acidity of the lemon and wine.

The step that matters

Heating the egg yolks gently while stirring. Egg yolk proteins thicken the mixture as they warm, but if the heat is too high or stirring stops, they can scramble and curdle. Gentle heat with constant stirring keeps the mixture smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, sugar, egg. 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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