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Beef Fritters

Beef fritters are small fried patties made from finely chopped steak or roast beef, seasoned with salt and pepper, and served hot with parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the finely chopped beef with salt and pepper.

Fry and serve

  1. In an omelette pan, heat a small piece of butter until hot.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the beef mixture into the pan.

  3. Fry until light brown on both sides.

  4. Serve hot, garnished with parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold steak or roast beef
Forms the main body of the fritters, giving them their meaty flavour and texture.
Butter
Fat in the pan that conducts heat and helps the fritters brown evenly.

The step that matters

Fry until light brown on both sides. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs a hot, dry pan surface. If the pan is not hot enough, the fritters steam and turn grey and soggy instead of golden.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter. 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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