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Corn Meal Fritters

A batter of sour milk, eggs, flour, cornmeal, baking soda, and molasses or sugar is fried into golden fritters.

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

Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn Meal Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine sour milk, salt, eggs, molasses or sugar, and flour in a bowl.

  2. Add cornmeal until the mixture forms a stiff batter.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in warm water and stir it into the batter.

Fry

  1. Fry spoonfuls of the batter 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.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter and adds tang.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the fritters.
Corn meal
Provides the main body and corn flavour, thickening the batter to a stiff consistency.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Molasses or sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fritters brown during frying.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda and frying. Baking soda must be dissolved and mixed in promptly so it reacts with the sour milk while the batter is still fresh. Oil must be hot enough so the fritters brown on the outside before absorbing too much fat and becoming greasy.

“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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