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Salsify, Fried, or Salsify Fritters

Fried salsify fritters made with flour, butter, egg white, and fried parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Salsify, Fried, or Salsify Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salsify

  1. Boil the salsify until tender, or use cooked salsify.

  2. Drain and dry the roots by pressing them in a soft cloth.

Make the batter

  1. Make a batter by mixing flour, salt, and butter in a bowl.

  2. Add lukewarm water to the batter to melt the butter.

  3. Beat the batter until smooth.

  4. Chill the batter.

  5. Add the well-whisked egg white to the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the salsify in the batter.

  2. Fry the coated salsify in hot fat until lightly browned.

  3. Drain the fritters on a sieve.

  4. Serve hot, garnished with fried 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 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

Salsify
Forms the main body of the fritter, giving a tender, mild vegetable filling.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together around the salsify.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and a tender texture to the batter.
Egg white
Whisked into the batter to add lightness and help the coating puff and set when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the coated salsify in hot fat until lightly browned. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping. Hot fat sets the coating quickly, creating a crisp surface and keeping the fritter from soaking up excess oil.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, 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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