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Salsify Patties

Salsify patties are fried cakes made from mashed salsify, egg, flour, butter, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Salsify Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salsify

  1. Wash and scrape the salsify roots.

  2. Boil the salsify until tender, then mash well.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg, flour, butter, salt, pepper, and enough milk to make a batter.

  2. Stir the batter into the mashed salsify.

Fry

  1. Drop large spoonfuls of the mixture into boiling lard.

  2. Fry until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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 roots
Provide the main body and flavor of the patties once boiled and mashed.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the patties hold their shape while frying.
Flour
Adds body to the batter and helps the patties hold together and brown.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the batter.
Milk
Loosens the batter to the right consistency for spooning and frying.

The step that matters

Drop the spoonfuls into boiling lard. The fat must be hot enough to set the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the batter absorbs fat and the patties turn greasy and fall apart before they brown.

“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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