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Dessert

Frying Batter

A stiff batter made with flour, olive oil, salt, egg yolks, cold water, and folded egg whites for frying fruit or seafood.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Frying Batter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, olive oil, salt, egg yolks, and cold water to form a stiff batter.

  2. Ensure the batter is thick enough to hold drops from the mixing spoon.

Finish and use

  1. Just before using, fold in the beaten egg whites until frothy.

  2. Use this batter for any kind of fruit or for making oyster and clam fritters.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + olivetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,871 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Olive + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together around the food.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter for a smooth, cohesive coating.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they add air and lightness to the batter.
Olive oil
Adds fat, which contributes tenderness and a richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold air bubbles that lighten the batter. Folding gently preserves that air; stirring vigorously deflates it, leaving a denser coating.

“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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