Why it works: Pork and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,187 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Pork Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Prepare slices of pork as directed in No. 36.
Fry the pork in a pan until nearly done.
Make a thick batter with cornmeal, flour, and cold water.
Batter and fry
Dip the pork slices in the batter.
Return the battered pork to the fry pan and cook until golden brown.
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.
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Pork + flourtop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,187 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pork and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,187 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
- Cornmeal
- Adds a slightly gritty crunch to the batter's crust.
- Flour
- Forms the batter's structure so it clings to the pork.
- Cold water
- Hydrates the flour and cornmeal to make a thick, pourable batter.
The step that matters
Return the battered pork to the fry pan and cook until golden brown. Browning depends on surface heat and a dry coating; if the pork is overcrowded or the batter is too wet, it steams instead of browning, leaving a pale, soggy crust.
“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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