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Lemon Dumplings

Lemon dumplings made from bread crumbs, beef, flour, lemon rind, powdered sugar, and eggs, boiled for an hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,032 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Lemon Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the bread crumbs, chopped beef, flour, lemon rind, and powdered sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and combine well.

  3. Divide the mixture into 4 equal portions.

  4. Wrap each portion in a well-floured cloth.

Cook

  1. Boil the dumplings for 1 hour.

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. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Fine bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the dumpling together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
All-purpose flour
Adds structure and helps the dumpling hold its shape while boiling.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness to the dumplings.

The step that matters

Wrapping each portion in a well-floured cloth. Flour on the cloth forms a thin dry skin that keeps the dumpling from absorbing too much water and falling apart while it boils.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, beef, flour, sugar, 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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