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Spinach Fritters

Spinach fritters made with boiled spinach, cream or Allemande sauce, egg yolks, and butter, fried in clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Spinach Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spinach mixture

  1. Combine the chopped spinach and cream or Allemande sauce in a flat saucepan.

  2. Reduce the mixture over medium heat.

  3. Set the mixture aside to cool.

  4. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  5. Add the butter and egg yolks to the mixture and mix everything well.

  6. Let the mixture cool completely.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat clarified butter in a frying pan.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the spinach mixture into the pan, ensuring they do not touch.

  3. Fry the fritters until golden brown on both sides.

  4. Serve the fritters on a napkin and garnish with fried parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Spinach + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Spinach
Forms the bulk of the fritter and gives it its green color and earthy flavor.
Egg yolks
Bind the chopped spinach together and set when cooked, giving the fritters structure.
Cream or allemande sauce
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture soft and tender.
Clarified butter
Fries the fritters and promotes even golden browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely before frying. Warm or wet spinach mixture with raw egg yolks can loosen and spread in the hot fat, and it may not set in the centre. Cooling firms the mixture so the spoonfuls hold their shape and brown evenly.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, pepper, nutmeg, butter, egg, parsley):

  1. Spinachthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, nutmeg, butter, egg, parsley. 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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