Why it works: Apple and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,140 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Boiled Apple Dumplings
Ingredients
Directions
Select apples that will cook quickly, then peel and core them, leaving the apples whole.
Prepare a plain dough by mixing flour and suet.
Roll the dough to about ¼ inch thick and cover each apple with it.
Steam the dumplings for about 1 hour, or boil them in water for 1 hour instead.
If boiling, ensure the water is at a rolling boil before adding the dumplings.
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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Apple + flourtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,140 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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