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Spinach Fritters

Spinach fritters are fried batter made from cooked spinach, bread, spices, cream or eggs, 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 and mince it.

  2. In a bowl, combine the minced spinach, 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, then mix them into the batter.

Fry and serve

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

  2. Once the fritters rise, remove them from the oil, drain, 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
Forms the bulk of the fritter and gives it its green color and earthy flavor.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the batter so the fritters hold their shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the fritters as they cook in hot oil.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the batter to a workable consistency.
Currants
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the fritters.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of the batter into a frying pan with boiling oil.. The oil must be hot enough to set the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the batter absorbs oil, becomes greasy, and may fall apart instead of rising and browning.

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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