Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Matzos Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Mix the egg yolk, sugar, milk, and matzo meal to create a thin batter.
Rinse the matzo with water and place it in the oven for 1 minute.
Heat the fat in a skillet.
Fry and serve
Spread batter on one side of the matzo and fry, batter side down, until browned.
Spread batter on the other side and brown.
Serve hot, sprinkled with powdered sugar.
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.
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Matzos
- Form the base sheets that hold the batter and crisp when fried.
- Egg yolk
- Adds richness and helps bind the batter to the matzo.
- Milk
- Moistens the matzo meal into a spreadable batter.
- Matzos meal
- Thickens the batter and gives it a coating that browns in the fat.
- Fat
- Conducts heat to brown the batter and adds flavor and crispness.
The step that matters
Browning the batter side in hot fat. The fat must be hot enough before frying so the batter browns and crisps quickly rather than soaking up oil and turning soggy. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs sustained surface heat.
“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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