Skip to main content
Main

Dumplings

A savory dumpling made with onion, bacon, breadcrumbs, flour, sage, and eggs, boiled and served with poached eggs and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Dumplings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dumpling mixture

  1. Fry the onion and bacon over gentle heat until the onion is soft.

  2. Remove the mixture from heat.

  3. Mix in breadcrumbs, flour, sage, salt, and pepper.

  4. Stir in enough beaten egg to bind the mixture.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

  6. Shape the mixture into small balls.

Cook and serve

  1. Plunge the balls into boiling salted water.

  2. Boil the dumplings for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain the dumplings.

  4. Arrange them on a hot dish.

  5. Fry the bacon slices.

  6. Poach the eggs.

  7. Garnish with eggs and bacon before serving.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Flour + sagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so the dumplings hold their shape.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture together so the dumplings hold their shape when cooked.
Flour
Adds starch that helps thicken and firm up the dumpling mixture.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savory flavor to the dumplings.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory aroma when softened in fat.

The step that matters

Stir in enough beaten egg to bind the mixture. Too little egg leaves the dumplings crumbly and likely to break apart in the boiling water, while too much makes them wet and heavy. Adding it gradually lets you judge when the mixture holds together.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sage, pepper, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes