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Salsify and Corn Fritters

A fried batter of boiled salsify, milk, eggs, flour, and optional grated corn.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,069 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salsify and Corn Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salsify

  1. Boil salsify in milk and water until soft.

  2. Mash the salsify smoothly, removing any stringy bits.

Make the batter

  1. Stir the mashed salsify into a batter made with milk, eggs, and enough flour to make it stiff.

  2. If using corn, add grated corn to the batter.

Fry

  1. Fry spoonfuls of the batter in fat from salt pork or butter 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. Pork + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Salsify
Forms the main body of the fritters and gives them their soft, mashable texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter together and help the fritters hold their shape when fried.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it stays stiff enough to form spoonfuls that hold together.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter and helps soften the salsify while it boils.
Fat from salt pork or butter
Conducts heat for frying and browns the outside of the fritters, adding flavor.

The step that matters

Mash the salsify smoothly, removing any stringy bits.. Stringy fibers left in the mash can stay tough and pull apart the batter, so a smooth purée gives fritters with an even texture.

“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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