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Savoury fritters made from parboiled vegetables, or from a cooled paste cut into shapes, dipped in batter and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chevalley de Rivaz, Victor · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Round the Table

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Put about a pint of boiling water and the butter into a saucepan.

  2. Drop in Indian corn flour gradually, stirring until you get a liquid paste.

  3. Remove the saucepan from the fire and stir in grated Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.

  4. Pour the paste onto a marble slab to cool, then cut it into shapes and fry.

Make the potato paste

  1. For the potato paste, pass some potatoes through a sieve.

  2. Stir into the potatoes a little melted butter and enough yolks of eggs or whole eggs to form a stiffish paste.

  3. Season the paste with salt, pepper and a little nutmeg.

  4. Form the paste into little balls, dip in batter and fry.

Fry the vegetables and leaves

  1. Parboil the vegetables, cut into convenient shapes.

  2. Dip each piece of vegetable in batter and fry it.

  3. Wash and thoroughly dry the leaves or flowers, such as spinach, sorrel, borage, marrow flowers or acacia flowers.

  4. Take each leaf or flower by the stalk and dip it in batter, making sure it is well covered.

  5. Drop the battered leaf or flower into the frying-pan and fry it.

Make the Parmesan fritters

  1. Put a pint of water into a saucepan with butter, cayenne and black pepper.

  2. When the water boils, throw in sufficient flour to form a thick paste.

  3. Take off the fire and work in grated Parmesan, then the yolks of three or four eggs and the whites of two beaten to a froth.

  4. Let the paste rest for a couple of hours, then drop pieces the size of a walnut into hot lard and fry.

  5. Serve sprinkled with very fine salt.

By Chevalley de Rivaz, Victor. 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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together28,563 recipes

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

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks and beaten whites bind the paste and lighten the batter as it fries.
Parmesan cheese (in the method)
Adds savoury flavour and firmness to the paste.
Potatoes (in the method)
Form the body of the potato paste, giving it a soft, stiff texture.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the boiling water into a paste that holds its shape and coats the food.

The step that matters

Let the paste rest for a couple of hours. Resting lets the flour fully hydrate and the paste stiffen, so pieces hold their shape instead of spreading or falling apart in hot lard.

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

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

  1. Tarragonabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Dillabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, pepper, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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