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Dessert

Lemon Fritters

A fried batter of beef suet, flour, breadcrumbs, and lemon zest, sweetened with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Lemon Fritters

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the shredded beef suet, flour, bread crumbs, lemon rind, and powdered sugar.

  2. Stir in the milk, beaten eggs, and lemon juice until well mixed.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a pan and fry small amounts of the mixture until lightly browned on each side, about 5-6 minutes.

  2. Drain on paper towels and serve 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the fritters moist and rich inside as they fry.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help set the fritters as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and light body that hold the fritter shape.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown lightly when fried.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour against the sweetness.

The step that matters

Frying small amounts until lightly browned on each side. Frying small portions lets the heat reach the centre before the outside browns too far. Oil that is too cool makes the fritters soak up grease and turn heavy, while oil that is too hot browns the outside before the inside sets.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, bread, sugar, milk, egg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, bread, sugar, milk, egg. 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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