Name: Excellent Meat Fritters
Ingredients: 1 cup finely chopped lean meat (cold roast beef, boiled ham, mutton, or chicken); 2 cups fine, well-dried bread crumbs; ½ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 tablespoon melted butter; 2 large eggs; 2 tablespoons butter (for frying); Cornmeal (for coating)

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 ↓

Excellent Meat Fritters

Ingredients

1 cup finely chopped lean meat (cold roast beef, boiled ham, mutton, or chicken)
2 cups fine, well-dried bread crumbs
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon melted butter
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons butter (for frying)
Cornmeal (for coating)

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, combine the chopped meat, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, melted butter, and beaten eggs, then mix thoroughly and form the mixture into cakes.
Roll each cake in cornmeal to coat.

Fry

In a frying pan, heat 2 tablespoons of butter until browned.
Add the fritters to the pan and fry until they are 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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture together so the fritters hold their shape.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and give the fritters body and structure.
Lean meat: Provides the main filling and savory flavor of the fritters.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the outside brown during frying.

The step that matters

Frying the fritters in hot, browned butter. If the butter is not hot enough, the fritters absorb fat and turn greasy rather than forming a golden crust. Cooking until golden browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, adding flavor and texture.

“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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Excellent Meat Fritters