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Spinach Fritters

Spinach fritters are fried batter made with spinach, stale bread, nutmeg, sugar, cream, eggs, salt, pepper, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 603 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spinach Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Boil the spinach until tender, then drain and press to remove excess water.

  2. Mince the spinach finely and mix with half the grated stale bread, nutmeg, and sugar.

Make the batter

  1. Add cream and enough eggs to create a batter, beating the egg whites separately.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. If they separate, add more bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into boiling lard.

  2. Fry until they rise to the surface and are golden brown, then drain and serve immediately.

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. Spinach + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Spinach
Forms the bulk of the fritter and gives its green flavour and moist body.
Grated stale bread
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the mixture so it holds together when fried.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set on heating, giving the fritters structure.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the batter tender rather than dry.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the hot lard.

The step that matters

Drain and press the spinach well. Excess water turns to steam in the hot lard, which can loosen the batter and make the fritters fall apart or separate. Removing it first lets the mixture hold its shape.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Spinachthe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

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