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Meat Fritters

Fritters made from cold meat scraps mixed with flour batter and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Meat Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix flour and water until smooth.

  2. Add melted butter and beaten egg whites, stir.

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut meat thin and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Combine meat with batter.

Fry

  1. Drop small portions into a frying pan of boiling lard.

  2. Fry for 6–7 minutes until browned on both sides.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the batter's structure, setting into a sturdy crust around the meat when fried.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness to the batter as they set during frying.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the batter and helps it brown.
Scraps of cold meat
Provide the savoury filling that the batter encases.

The step that matters

Drop small portions into the boiling lard. The fat must be hot enough to seal the batter quickly. If it is too cool, the fritters absorb grease, turn heavy and brown unevenly.

“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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