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Cauliflower Fritters with Cheese

A fried snack of cauliflower pieces coated in egg and cheese batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cauliflower Fritters with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender but not too soft.

  2. Break the cauliflower into neat pieces.

Make the batter

  1. Prepare a frying batter using 1 egg.

  2. Add the grated cheese, salt, and cayenne to the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the cauliflower pieces into the batter.

  2. Drop them into hot fat and fry for three minutes.

  3. Drain on paper and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.

  4. Serve very 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. Cheese + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  5. Egg + parmesan cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the main body of each fritter and gives a tender bite inside.
Egg
Binds the batter so it coats the cauliflower and holds together in the fat.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the batter brown in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Drop them into hot fat and fry for three minutes. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping quickly. Frying in hot fat sets the egg coating so it browns and stays crisp.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cheese, pepper, parmesan cheese. 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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