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Cold Meat Fritters

Cold Meat Fritters are fried batter containing minced cold meat, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cold Meat Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour and make a well in the center.

  2. Add the salad oil and egg yolk, then stir in the tepid water to form a smooth batter.

  3. Beat the mixture for 5 minutes.

  4. Whisk the egg white until stiff and gently fold it into the batter along with the minced meat, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat frying fat until smoking but not too hot.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot fat, using one spoon to scrape the fritters off another.

  3. Fry until golden brown, turning occasionally.

  4. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Meat + nutmegtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,656 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Egg white
Whisked until stiff, it lightens the batter so the fritters puff and stay tender.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and binds the batter so it holds together smoothly.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure as its starch sets during frying.
Cold meat
Provides the savory filling and flavor of the fritters.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiff egg white. Folding gently preserves the air whisked into the egg white. Stirring hard would deflate it, leaving dense fritters instead of light, tender ones.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, flour, egg):

  1. Turmericfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, flour, 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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