Why it works: Lemon and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,157 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Lemon Dumplings
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lemon pudding mixture as per the recipe.
Butter several small cups or moulds.
Cover each with greased paper.
Place the cups in a shallow pan and pour boiling water around them until it reaches halfway up the sides.
Cover the pan and steam for 45 minutes or longer, depending on the size of the moulds.
Let the dumplings stand for a minute, then turn them out onto a dish.
Sift white sugar over the dumplings and serve with wine sauce.
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.
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Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,157 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,147 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, wine, sauce):
- Vanillafits better
- Applefits about as well
- Grapefits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, wine, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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