Skip to main content
Main

Beef Fritters

Beef fritters are small fried pieces of seasoned roast beef coated in a batter of flour, water, butter, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Season the scraped beef with pepper and salt.

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour and water to create a batter.

  3. Stir in the melted butter until well combined.

  4. Whisk the egg whites and fold them into the batter along with the seasoned beef.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard or dripping in a pan until boiling.

  2. Drop small amounts of the batter into the hot fat.

  3. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, turning to brown both sides.

  4. Remove and drain on a napkin before serving.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the batter's structure as it sets around the beef during frying.
Egg whites
Whisked egg whites add air and lightness, helping the fritters puff and stay tender.
Roast beef
Provides the savory filling that the batter surrounds.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the batter.

The step that matters

Heat the fat until boiling before adding the batter. Hot fat sets the outside of each fritter quickly, so it browns and crisps rather than absorbing oil and turning greasy or heavy. Adding batter to fat that is not hot enough lets it soak up fat and cook 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes