Name: Fritters with Egg
Ingredients: 4 slices of freshened fat pork; 1 egg; 1 cup milk; 1 teaspoon baking powder; flour (enough to make a rather stiff batter); a pinch of salt

Why it works: Pork and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,386 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Fritters with Egg

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the pork

Fry the pork slices until browned on both sides.
Remove the pork from the frying pan.

Make and fry the fritters

In a bowl, mix the egg, milk, baking powder, flour, and salt to create a stiff batter.
Drop large spoonfuls of batter into the pan.
Place a piece of fried pork in the center of each spoonful and cover with batter.
Fry until nicely browned, then turn to brown the other side.

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.

Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,386 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pork + flourtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,187 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Pork fat: Provides the savory filling and fat that flavors the fritters as it fries.
Egg: Binds the batter so it holds together around the pork.
Milk: Moistens the flour so it forms a batter that cooks to a tender interior.
Baking powder: Releases gas during frying, helping the fritters puff and lighten.
Flour: Provides the structure that sets the batter around the pork as it cooks.

The step that matters

Keep the batter stiff. A stiff batter holds its shape when dropped into hot fat and wraps the pork without spreading. A thin batter would spread, cook unevenly, and absorb more oil.

“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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Fritters with Egg