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Fish Fritters

A batter of salt cod, milk, eggs, flour, and baking powder, fried into fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fish Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Finely shred the salt codfish.

  2. Place the shredded fish in a saucepan with plenty of cold water.

  3. Bring the water to a boil.

  4. Turn off the heat and add more cold water.

  5. Let the fish boil slowly for about 15 minutes.

  6. Strain off the water and let the fish cool.

Make and fry the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk, eggs, salt, baking powder, and enough flour to create a thick batter.

  2. Stir in the cooled fish.

  3. Fry the mixture like fritters.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Salt codfish
Provides the main savory flavor and the fish body of the fritters.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the fritters as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it holds together when fried.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the batter and softening its texture.

The step that matters

Boiling the codfish in fresh water. Salt codfish is very salty, so soaking and boiling it in changed water removes excess salt. Skipping or shortening this leaves the fritters overly salty, and the fish should be cooled before mixing so it does not thin the batter.

“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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