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Salsify and Corn Fritters

A fried batter made from boiled salsify, milk, eggs, flour, and optional grated corn.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,069 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salsify and Corn Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the salsify in milk and water until soft.

  2. Mash the salsify smoothly, removing any stringy bits.

  3. Stir the mashed salsify into a batter made with milk, eggs, and enough flour to make it stiff.

  4. If using corn, add the grated corn to the batter.

Fry

  1. Heat the fat in a frying pan and drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot fat.

  2. Fry until golden brown on both sides.

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. Pork + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Salsify
Its soft, mashed flesh gives the fritters their main body and flavor.
Eggs
They bind the batter and help the fritters set and hold their shape when fried.
Flour
It thickens the batter so it stays stiff enough to hold its shape in the pan.
Milk
It moistens the batter and adds richness and browning to the fritters.

The step that matters

Mash the salsify smoothly. Any stringy bits left in the mash will not break down in the batter and can make the fritters fibrous and uneven in texture.

“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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