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Potato Fritters

A fried potato batter made with cream, flour, eggs, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Grate the cold boiled potatoes into a bowl.

  2. Add the cream or milk and enough flour to make a stiff batter.

  3. Mix in the egg yolks and then gently fold in the beaten egg whites and salt.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan over high heat.

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

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. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that gives the fritters their body and soft interior.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the potato into a batter.
Flour
Binds the potato and liquid so the batter holds its shape in the pan.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter while contributing fat and flavour.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they lighten the batter and add air for a tender texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently preserves the air bubbles in the beaten whites. Stirring vigorously deflates them, making the fritters dense instead of light and tender.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, 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.

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