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Dumplings I

A simple dumpling recipe for adding to stew, made with flour, baking powder, salt, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dumplings I

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Stir in milk until the mixture is as stiff as possible, leaving some flour unmixed.

Cook the dumplings

  1. Dip a spoon in the stew, then into the dough, cutting off small pieces no larger than a hen's egg.

  2. Place the dumplings on top of the stew, ensuring they are spaced out.

  3. Move the pan back on the stove to prevent burning, keeping it at a slow boil.

  4. Leave the cover off until the dumplings puff up, then cover and cook for about 20 minutes.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the dumplings as it sets with heat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the moist dough, helping the dumplings puff and rise.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the stiff dough holds together and cooks through.

The step that matters

Leave the cover off until the dumplings puff up. Covering too early traps steam before the dough has risen, so the dumplings can turn dense and gummy instead of light.

“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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