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Dessert

Rich Lemon Dumplings

A sweet dumpling made with bread crumbs, beef marrow, sugar, lemon zest and juice, boiled and served with almonds or sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Rich Lemon Dumplings

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 30 minutes.

  3. Beat the mixture for 10 minutes.

Boil and serve

  1. Divide into 5 or 6 equal parts and tie each in a cloth.

  2. Plunge them into boiling water and boil for 1 hour.

  3. Serve with finely chopped blanched sweet almonds or sifted sugar.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the dumpling together.
Beef marrow
Adds richness and fat, giving the dumplings a tender, moist texture.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture so the crumbs soften into a workable mixture.
Lemon
Supplies aroma and acidity from the rind and juice.

The step that matters

Tying the cloths. The cloths must be tied firmly so the dumplings keep their shape and the mixture does not spread or leak into the boiling water while it cooks.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, beef, sugar, egg, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, beef, sugar, egg, milk. 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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