Name: Fritters
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons potato flour; ½ pint milk; 2 whole eggs; 3 or 4 egg yolks; 1 pat of fresh butter; sugar to taste; fruit (e.g., strawberries, pineapple, peaches, apricots)

Why it works: Pineapple and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 168 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make a smooth paste with potato flour and part of the milk.
Gradually add the rest of the milk or an equal amount of milk and cream.
Add the whole eggs, egg yolks, butter, and sugar.
If necessary, strain the mixture and heat it while stirring until thick.
Cool slightly before using.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Pineapple + peachtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together168 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together781 recipes

Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Swap the potato

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

Sweet potatofits better
Capsicumfits better
Arrowrootfits about as well
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, butter, sugar, pineapple, peach. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.