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Fried Salsify

A fried cake made from mashed salsify, milk, butter, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Salsify

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the salsify and soak it in cold water for 10 minutes.

  2. Boil the salsify until tender, then drain and let it cool.

  3. Mash the salsify with a wooden spoon, removing any fibrous parts.

Make the cakes

  1. Mix in enough milk to form a paste, then add a little butter and 1½ beaten eggs for each cup of salsify.

  2. Season to taste, shape into round, flat cakes, and dredge with flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cakes in hot oil until they are light brown.

  2. Drain excess fat and serve hot.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Salsify
Provides the main body and flavour of the cakes once mashed.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mashed salsify binds into a workable paste.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender interior.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the cakes hold their shape when fried.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that helps the cakes brown and crisp in the oil.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes in hot oil until light brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the cakes absorb excess fat and turn greasy, while the coating and egg set slowly. Hot oil seals the surface quickly so the cakes stay intact and crisp.

“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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