Why it works: Tomato and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,065 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Tomato Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Stir the baking soda into the stewed tomatoes.
Add flour until the mixture is as thick as pancake batter.
Fry
Heat lard in a pan until hot.
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard and fry until golden brown.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Tomato + flourtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,065 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Stewed tomatoes
- Provide the liquid and acidity that make up the batter's base.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the tomatoes' acidity to produce gas that lightens the fritters.
- Flour
- Thickens the tomato mixture into a batter that holds its shape in the fat.
- Lard
- Fries the batter, browning the outside and crisping the fritters.
The step that matters
Dropping the batter into hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of forming a crisp, golden crust. Heating the lard first lets the surface set quickly.
“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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