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Dessert

Currant Dumplings

A boiled dumpling made with suet, breadcrumbs, flour, currants, sugar, lime peel, nutmeg, orange marmalade, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lime and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 937 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Currant Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the minced suet, bread crumbs, flour, currants, sugar, lime peel, nutmeg, and orange marmalade or citron.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and combine well.

  3. Roll the mixture into round balls and tie them in a floured cloth separately.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the dumplings for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with melted butter and sugar poured over them.

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. Lime + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together937 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Lime + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that melts during boiling, keeping the dumplings moist and tender.
Bread crumbs
Provides the bulk and structure that holds the dumplings together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the dumplings hold their shape while cooking.
Currants
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the dumplings.

The step that matters

Tying the dumplings in a floured cloth. If the cloth is loose, water seeps in and the dumplings turn soggy and fall apart. A floured cloth also keeps the outside from sticking, so the tie must be snug and the dough tightly packed.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, sugar, lime, nutmeg, orange, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, sugar, lime, nutmeg, orange, 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.

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