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Indian Fritters

A batter of cornmeal, milk, flour, eggs, and salt fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Indian Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light.

  2. Add the milk, salt, meal, and flour, and mix well.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan to 1½ inches deep.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot lard and fry until golden brown.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Eggs
Yolks add richness, and the whipped whites lighten the batter for an airy interior.
Cornmeal
Gives the fritters their sturdy, slightly gritty structure and a golden crust.
Flour
Helps bind the batter and gives the fritters body.
Milk
Hydrates the meal and flour, producing a pourable batter that cooks through.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and browns the outside quickly.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites trap air that makes the fritters light. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam, leaving dense, heavy fritters, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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