Skip to main content
Main

Dumplings

These dumplings are made from bread crumbs, flour, bacon, and herbs, then boiled or steamed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix bread crumbs and flour in a bowl.

  2. Add bacon, salt, pepper, onion, sage, and parsley.

  3. Make a stiff paste with skim milk or water.

  4. Add baking powder and mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Form into dumplings the size of a small egg.

  2. Boil or steam for about an hour.

  3. Serve with stews or boiled meat.

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. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the dumpling and absorb liquid to give a firm body.
Flour
Binds with the liquid to form a stiff paste that holds the dumpling together.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that keeps the dumplings moist as they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the dumplings rise and turn lighter in texture.

The step that matters

Add the baking powder and mix well. Baking powder needs to be evenly distributed through the dough so every dumpling rises uniformly. Unevenly mixed leavening leaves dense spots and gas pockets in some dumplings and not others.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, pepper, sage, parsley, milk):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, pepper, sage, parsley, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes