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Dessert

Rice Apple Dumpling

A dumpling made with rice, apple, currant jelly, and spices, served with cream or vanilla sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rice Apple Dumpling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Boil the rice until tender, then season with butter and salt. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten eggs.

Assemble the dumplings

  1. Prepare squares of white mush and dip each in hot water, then sprinkle with flour.

  2. Place 2 tablespoons of the rice mixture in the center of each square.

  3. Add a peeled and cored apple in the center, filling the cavity with currant jelly and sugar or spices.

  4. Draw the corners of the mush together and secure tightly with pins.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil or steam the dumplings for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with cream or vanilla sauce.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Rice
Forms the starchy filling that cooks into a soft, set mass around the apple.
Eggs
Bind the cooked rice together so the filling holds its shape when cut or served.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the rice, softening its flavor and texture.
Apple (in the method)
Provides the fruit centre that softens during steaming and adds natural sweetness and acidity.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and tartness to the apple cavity, flavoring the fruit as it cooks.

The step that matters

Securing the wrapper. Pins must close the mush tightly; a loose seal lets water into the dumpling during boiling or steaming, making the filling soggy and possibly splitting the wrapper.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, egg, flour, sugar, cream. 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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