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Dessert

Currant Fritters

A batter of milk, flour, eggs, rice, currants, sugar, and nutmeg fried in lard or dripping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Currant Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the milk and flour to create a smooth batter.

  2. Stir in the well-whisked eggs, rice, currants, sugar, and nutmeg.

  3. Beat the mixture for a few minutes; if it is not thick enough, add a little more boiled rice.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop small quantities of the mixture into a pan of boiling lard or clarified dripping.

  2. Fry the fritters until golden brown, then drain on blotting paper.

  3. Serve hot on a white doily, sprinkled with sifted sugar, and provide a cut lemon on the side.

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. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and set the fritters into a tender, cohesive structure when fried.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth batter that holds its shape in the hot fat.
Boiled rice
Adds body to the batter, and extra rice can be used to thicken it further.
Currants
Provide pockets of sweet, fruity flavour throughout the fritters.
Hot lard or clarified dripping
Cooks the batter quickly, browning the outside while keeping the inside moist.

The step that matters

Frying in hot fat. If the fat is not boiling hot when the batter is dropped in, the fritters absorb grease and turn heavy and soggy instead of crisping and browning. Adding small spoonfuls keeps the fat temperature steady.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, egg, rice, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, rice, sugar, 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.

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