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Dessert

Strawberry Fritters

A batter of flour, oil, eggs, lemon peel, and white wine is folded with strawberries and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,832 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Strawberry Fritters

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the salad oil, lemon peel, and flour together.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks and add enough white wine to achieve a thick cream consistency.

  3. At the last moment, fold in the egg whites beaten to stiff peaks.

  4. Remove the stems from large strawberries and drop them into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat cottolene in a kettle to a depth of at least 2 inches.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot oil, allowing one strawberry per fritter.

  3. Fry until golden brown.

  4. Remove with a skimmer and place on brown paper in the oven.

  5. Sift sugar over the fritters before serving.

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. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. White wine + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,760 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Egg whites beaten to stiff peaks give the batter lightness and an airy, puffed texture.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the batter that holds the fritter together while frying.
White wine
Thins the batter to a thick cream consistency and adds a little acidity and aroma.
Large strawberries
Provide moisture and fruity sweetness inside each fritter.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites at the last moment. Beaten egg whites trap air that gives lift; if they sit or are overmixed, they deflate and the fritters turn dense and flat.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, white wine, cream. 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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