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German Fritter Soup

A soup made with chicken, flour batter fritters, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

German Fritter Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. In a large pot, boil the chicken in 3 quarts of water for 2.5 hours.

Make the fritters

  1. In a bowl, mix 3 tablespoons of flour, 4 eggs, and 1 cup of sweet milk to create a thin batter.

  2. Cook the batter on a griddle to make thin cakes, as thin as a leaf.

  3. Cut the cakes into small strips and place them in a bowl.

  4. Season the strips with a little mace, nutmeg, salt, and pepper to taste.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Set and bind the batter, giving the thin cakes structure when cooked.
Flour
Provides the starch that thickens the batter and gives the cakes body.
Sweet milk
Thins the batter and adds moisture and richness to the cakes.

The step that matters

Cooking the thin batter cakes on the griddle. The batter must be spread very thin so the cakes cook through and set quickly without burning or becoming tough. Thin batter sets fast, so heat and timing need watching.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, egg, milk, nutmeg, pepper. 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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