Skip to main content
Dessert

Beignets De Pomme De Terre

A French potato fritter made with mashed potatoes, flour, eggs, cream, wine, and spices, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beignets De Pomme De Terre

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until well done, then drain and mash thoroughly.

  2. While still warm, mix in the cream, wine, eggs, yolks, lemon juice, nutmeg, and salt.

  3. Set the bowl in ice water and beat the mixture for 15 minutes until light.

  4. Gently fold in the flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry small spoonfuls of the mixture in hot lard until golden brown.

  2. Drain on paper towels and serve hot.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 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. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that gives the fritters their soft, tender body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during frying, giving structure and richness.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, producing a tender, custardy interior.
Flour
Adds starch that thickens the batter so the fritters hold their shape.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the interior soft and rich.

The step that matters

Beating over ice water. Beating the mixture chilled for 15 minutes traps air for a light texture. Folding in the flour gently keeps that air from deflating, so the fritters stay light rather than dense.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, white wine, egg, lemon, nutmeg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, white wine, egg, lemon, nutmeg. 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.

More potato fritters recipes

Sweet 9 See all 119 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesDeep-Fried Potato BallsDeep-Fried Potato Balls119 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes