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Asparagus Fritters

A batter of eggs, flour, and butter mixed with cold cooked asparagus, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Asparagus Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the melted butter.

  2. Add flour, baking powder, and salt, then stir in enough milk to create a drop batter.

  3. Fold in the cold cooked asparagus pieces.

Fry and drain

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

  2. Fry until golden brown and drain on paper towels.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + asparagustop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the hot fat.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that form the fritter's body.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters puff and stay light.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the batter.
Cold cooked asparagus
Adds flavor and pieces of vegetable texture throughout the fritters.
Milk
Loosens the flour into a drop batter that holds its shape in hot oil.

The step that matters

Frying in hot deep fat. If the oil is not hot enough, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisping. Dropping spoonfuls into oil that is hot and steady lets the outside set and brown quickly, keeping the inside light.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, milk. 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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