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Spinach Fritters

Spinach fritters are small fried balls made from cooked spinach, butter, sugar, milk, salt, cayenne pepper, lemon peel, eggs, flour, and coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Spinach Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash and clean the spinach thoroughly, then cook until done.

  2. Drain the spinach in a colander and chop it finely.

Make the mixture

  1. Return the chopped spinach to a saucepan and add butter, sugar, milk, salt, cayenne pepper, and grated lemon peel.

  2. Let the mixture simmer for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool, then stir in the beaten eggs and flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Form the mixture into small balls.

  2. Dip each ball in egg, then coat with cracker crumbs.

  3. Fry the fritters in boiling oil 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Spinach + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 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

Spinach
Forms the main body of the fritters and supplies the green flavor and bulk.
Eggs
Bind the chopped spinach so the mixture holds its shape, and the dipping egg helps the coating stick.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the mixture firm up enough to form into balls.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the spinach mixture.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer coating when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the spinach mixture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs and flour. Adding beaten eggs to a hot mixture can scramble them and make the batter loose, so cooling first helps the eggs bind evenly and the balls hold their shape when fried.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, pepper, lemon, egg, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, pepper, lemon, egg, flour. 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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