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Dessert

Lemon Dumplings

Lemon dumplings are small, boiled dumplings made from bread crumbs, beef suet, flour, lemon rind, powdered sugar, and eggs.

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

Make the dough

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

  2. Divide the mixture into four equal portions.

Cook

  1. Tie each portion in a well-floured cloth.

  2. Boil the dumplings for one 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

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the dumplings together.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the dumplings moist and rich as they cook.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm while boiling.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the lemon flavor.
Lemon rind
Contributes aromatic lemon flavor from the oils in the zest.

The step that matters

Tying the cloths. Flour on the cloth forms a skin that keeps the dumplings from sticking and losing shape. Cloths tied loosely let the dough swell, so they should be snug but not packed tight.

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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