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Apple Sauce for Pork and Goose

A cooked apple sauce made with tart apples, butter, and sugar, served with pork or goose.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,706 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Sauce for Pork and Goose

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare, core, and quarter the apples, placing them in cold water as you prepare them.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, add the apples with just enough water to prevent scorching, about ½ cup.

  2. Boil gently, uncovered, for about 40 minutes, or until the apples are perfectly soft.

Finish and serve

  1. Press the apples through a coarse sieve.

  2. Add the butter and sugar to taste.

  3. Serve.

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. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Tart apples
Provide the main body and sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the sauce.
Soft sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tartness of the apples.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil gently until perfectly soft. Apples need to cook fully so their pectin and cell walls break down; if the sauce is undercooked it will be lumpy and hard to press through the sieve. Gentle, uncovered simmering with just enough water helps prevent scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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