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Ham Fritters

Ham fritters are bread rounds coated with a ham and egg mixture, fried until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ham Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Remove all lean meat and fat from the ham bone and mince finely.

  2. In a bowl, mix the minced ham with 2 eggs, bread crumbs, and white pepper.

Make the custard and soak the bread

  1. In another bowl, whisk 2 eggs with milk to make a thin custard.

  2. Cut the roll of bread into small rounds and soak them in the custard.

  3. Heat butter in a frying pan.

  4. Remove the soaked bread rounds and fry until lightly browned.

Assemble and fry

  1. Spread the ham mixture thickly over the fried bread.

  2. Sprinkle with grated crumbs.

  3. Fry for 3-4 minutes in butter.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the savoury meat filling that forms the main body of the fritter.
Eggs
Bind the minced ham and set when cooked, holding the mixture together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, helping the ham mixture hold its shape.
Milk
Makes a thin custard that moistens the bread so it softens and carries flavour.
Bread roll
Forms the base, soaked in custard and fried until golden for a crisp, tender bottom.

The step that matters

Fry the soaked bread until lightly browned. Soaked bread is fragile and wet inside. Frying over moderate heat browns the surface and firms it, so it holds the ham topping without falling apart.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, meat, egg, bread, milk, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, meat, egg, bread, milk, 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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