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Parsnip Fritters

A fried batter of mashed parsnips, milk, butter, eggs, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Parsnip Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil parsnips until tender, then mash them very fine.

  2. In a bowl, combine mashed parsnips, milk, butter, eggs, flour, and salt.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat drippings in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot drippings and fry until golden brown.

  3. Serve on a hot dish or napkin.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Parsnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Parsnips
Form the bulk of the fritters and give them their sweet, earthy flavor and soft texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help the fritters hold their shape while frying.
Flour
Adds body to the batter so the fritters hold together rather than spreading in the pan.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the mashed parsnips into a spoonable batter.

The step that matters

Frying the spoonfuls in hot drippings. If the fat is not hot enough, the fritters absorb oil and turn greasy and pale instead of forming a crisp, golden crust. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs steady heat at the surface of the batter.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

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