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Tomato Fritters

Tomato fritters are fried tomato cakes made with tomatoes, salt, pepper, egg yolk, bread crumbs, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Tomato Fritters

Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Stew the tomatoes until reduced to 1 pint and set aside to cool.

  2. Once cooled, add salt, pepper, and egg yolk.

  3. Mix in enough bread crumbs to create a thick mixture.

Fry

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into boiling lard.

  2. Fry 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.

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.

  1. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and tangy flavour once stewed down to concentrate them.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the mixture together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the tomatoes so the mixture thickens and holds its shape.
Lard
Frying fat that conducts heat evenly and browns the outside of each fritter.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture before frying. If the mixture is too wet, the spoonfuls spread and break apart in the hot lard. Enough bread crumbs absorb the liquid so each fritter keeps its shape and forms a crisp, golden crust.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, bread. 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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