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Forcemeat Fritters

Savoury fritters made from bread crumbs, cream, eggs and herbs, fried in butter and served with brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Forcemeat Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Rub the butter into the bread crumbs.

  2. Add the chopped parsley and salt.

  3. Stir in the cream and beaten eggs until well combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a frying pan or griddle and lightly grease it with butter.

  2. Pour the mixture into fritters and place thin slices of hard-boiled egg on top.

  3. Cook until lightly browned on both sides.

  4. Serve with brown sauce.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, holding the fritters together.
Bread crumbs
Form the body of the fritters and absorb the cream for a soft interior.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the fritters tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the outside brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Cooking the fritters on both sides. Heat must be moderate so the outside browns and sets before the egg-rich interior cooks through. Too hot a pan scorches the surface while the centre stays soft and runny.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, cream, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, cream, egg. 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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