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Dessert

Banana Fritters

Fried banana halves coated in egg and breadcrumbs, served with a hot liquid sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Banana Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bananas in half.

Fry and serve

  1. Roll the banana halves in the egg, then in the bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

  3. Serve with hot liquid sauce.

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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Banana + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Banana + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  5. Banana + saucetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Provide the sweet, soft filling that cooks through inside the crisp coating.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the banana so the coating holds during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Frying in hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisp and golden. Hot fat sets the crumbs quickly, keeping the fritter dry and browned outside while the banana softens inside.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Pumpkinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, sauce. 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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