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Oxford Dumplings

A fried dumpling made from grated bread, currants, suet, flour, lemon peel, sugar, pimento, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Oxford Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated bread, currants, shredded suet, flour, grated lemon peel, sugar, and ground pimento.

  2. Add the eggs and enough milk to form a dough.

Cook

  1. Shape the mixture into five dumplings.

  2. Fry the dumplings in hot oil until they are a fine yellow brown.

  3. For a variation, use flour instead of bread, using half the quantity.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Grated bread
Provides the main body of the dumplings and absorbs moisture from the milk and eggs.
Shredded suet
Adds fat that keeps the dumplings tender and rich as they cook.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so it holds its shape while frying.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the dumplings.

The step that matters

Fry the dumplings in hot oil until they are a fine yellow brown. The oil must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the dumplings absorb oil and turn greasy before they set and colour.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, lemon, 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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