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Fish Fritters

A fried batter of shredded salt cod, milk, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Fish Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Finely shred the salt codfish and place it in a saucepan with 2 cups of cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then turn off the heat and add another cup of cold water.

  3. Let the fish simmer for about 15 minutes, then strain and let it cool.

Make the batter and fry

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 pint of milk, 4 eggs, ¼ teaspoon salt, and 1 large teaspoon of baking powder.

  2. Add enough flour to create a batter thicker than pancake batter.

  3. Stir in the cooled fish and fry in hot oil 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. Egg + flourtop 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

Salt codfish
Provides the main savory flavor and flaky texture of the fritters.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during frying to give structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the fritters rise and become light.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the fritters their body.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the batter soaks up oil and turns greasy instead of setting quickly. Hot oil sets the outside fast, browns it, and helps the fritters puff and stay light inside.

“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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