Skip to main content
Main

Plain Fritters

Plain fritters made with milk, flour, eggs, lard, lemon juice, cooked in lard, served hot with powdered cinnamon, sugar, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Plain Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat seven eggs very light, and stir them gradually into a quart of milk.

  2. Add, by degrees, three quarters of a pound, or a pint and a half of sifted flour.

  3. Beat the whole very hard.

Fry and serve

  1. Have ready in a frying pan over the fire a large quantity of lard.

  2. When the lard has come to a hard boil, begin to put in the fritters, allowing for each about a jill of batter, or half a large tea-cup full.

  3. They do not require turning, and will be done in a few minutes.

  4. Fry as many at a time as the pan will hold.

  5. Begin to fry the fritters as soon as the batter is mixed, as it will fall by setting.

  6. Send them to table hot, and eat them with powdered cinnamon, sugar, and white wine.

  7. Let fresh hot ones be sent in as they are wanted; they chill and become heavy immediately.

  8. Near a pound and a half of lard will be required for the above quantity of fritters.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

809Calories
28 gProtein
27 gFat
111 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Leslie. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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 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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add lightness and richness to the fritters.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the fritters together once cooked.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and makes a pourable batter.
Lard
Serves as the frying fat that cooks the fritters and browns their surface.

The step that matters

Frying the fritters as soon as the batter is mixed, in lard at a hard boil. Batter loses its lift as it stands, so it should go into the fat promptly. Hot fat sets the outside quickly, which keeps the fritters light and stops them absorbing grease.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes