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Parsnip Fritters

Parsnip fritters are small fried pieces of boiled parsnip mixed with batter, seasoned with salt, pepper, oil, parsley, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Parsnip Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and cut the parsnips into 1-inch pieces, then into strips.

  2. Wash the parsnips and boil in salted water with a little lemon for 45 minutes or until tender.

  3. Drain the parsnips and place them in a bowl.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, oil, chopped parsley, and lemon juice. Let stand for 30 minutes.

Fry

  1. Prepare a fritter batter.

  2. Drop the parsnips into the batter, then into boiling fat to fry until golden.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsnip + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Parsnip + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Form the main body of the fritter, becoming soft and sweet when boiled.
Fritter batter
Forms a coating that crisps and browns in the hot fat.
Oil
Adds fat and richness to the seasoned parsnips.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild, sweet parsnip flavour.

The step that matters

Drop the parsnips into the batter, then into boiling fat to fry until golden.. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the batter quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisp and golden.

Swap the parsnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, lemon):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, lemon. 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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