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Beignets a L'indienne

Corn beignets are fried dough balls made with corn, egg, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,324 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Beignets a L'indienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Drain the liquid from the can of corn.

  2. Break the egg into the corn, add salt, pepper, and sugar, and beat well.

  3. Stir in enough flour to make a batter that is stiff enough to drop from a spoon.

  4. Add baking powder according to the amount of flour used.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling.

  2. Drop the batter by small teaspoonfuls into the hot lard.

  3. Fry until golden brown on all sides, then remove and drain on a sieve or brown paper.

  4. Serve very hot on a folded napkin or fancy paper.

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. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour 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

Corn
Provides sweetness, moisture and bulk, giving the beignets their tender interior.
Egg
Binds the batter together and adds structure as it sets in the hot fat.
Flour
Forms the stiff batter's structure, which holds its shape when dropped into hot lard.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the beignets puff and turn light in the fryer.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying, browning the outside while cooking the batter through.

The step that matters

Frying at the right temperature. The lard must be hot enough that the batter sets and browns quickly. If the fat is too cool, the beignets absorb grease and turn heavy and soggy, while overly hot fat browns the outside before the centre cooks.

“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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