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Old Fashioned Fried Turnovers

A fried pastry filled with apples, made from a sour milk dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Old Fashioned Fried Turnovers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine sour milk, cream, baking soda, egg, and salt.

  2. Gradually add flour until the dough is soft.

  3. Roll out the dough to about the size of a saucer.

Fill and fry

  1. Place a spoonful of apple filling in the center of each round.

  2. Pinch the edges firmly to seal the turnovers.

  3. Heat lard in a pan and fry the turnovers until golden brown.

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. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release carbon dioxide, helping the dough rise and turn tender.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, binding the dough together.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its body and makes it workable for rolling.
Apples
Provide the sweet, tart filling that moistens the inside of the turnover.
Lard
Frying fat that transfers heat quickly, browning the outside and crisping the dough.

The step that matters

Pinch the edges firmly to seal the turnovers. If the seal is weak, the moist apple filling can leak into the hot fat, causing splatter and leaving the turnovers open and greasy. A firm pinch keeps the filling inside while it cooks.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, egg, flour. 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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