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Spinach Fritters

Spinach fritters are fried patties made from boiled spinach, bread, spices, eggs or cream, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spinach Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the spinach thoroughly, then drain it well.

  2. Mince the spinach and mix in the grated bread, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon.

  3. Add enough cream or the yolks and whites of the eggs to create a batter consistency.

  4. Scald the currants in hot water and mix them into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into a frying pan with boiling oil.

  2. Remove the fritters as soon as they rise, drain them, and serve.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Spinach + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Spinach
Provides the main body and green flavour of the fritter.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and helps the batter hold its shape while frying.
Cream or eggs
Bind the mixture into a batter and add richness and moisture.
Currants
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Frying at the right moment. Dropping the batter into oil that is not hot enough lets the fritters absorb grease and turn heavy. Removing them as soon as they rise, as the record directs, keeps them light and prevents them from overcooking and drying out.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, bread, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, cream):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, bread, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, 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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