Skip to main content
Main

Fritters

Fritters made with boiled oyster plants, apples, and a drop batter, fried in butter or suet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Fritters

Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the oyster plants.

  2. Prepare a stiff drop batter.

  3. Peel and chop the apples.

  4. Mix the oyster plants and apples into the batter.

Fry

  1. Fry spoonfuls of the mixture in hot butter or suet 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Oyster + beeftop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Apple + beeftop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Oyster plants
Provide the main bulk and vegetable flavour of the fritters.
Apples
Add moisture and a mild sweetness that balances the savoury batter.
Butter
Conducts heat and browns the outside of the fritters, adding richness.
Beef suet
Fries the fritters in fat, adding richness and a crisp golden crust.

The step that matters

Frying in hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, spoonfuls of stiff batter soak up grease and turn heavy instead of crisp and golden. Hot fat sets the outside quickly, so the fritters brown well without absorbing much oil.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, beef):

  1. Grapefits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, beef. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes