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Salsify Fritters

Salsify fritters are fried slices of boiled and mashed salsify mixed with flour, salt, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salsify Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and scrape the oyster plants, then place them in water to prevent discoloration.

  2. Cut the plants into slices and boil in a saucepan until tender.

  3. Drain and mash the boiled oyster plants through a colander.

Fry and serve

  1. Add flour, salt, and beaten eggs to the mashed oyster plants and mix well.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into hot oil and fry until browned.

  3. Serve with sauce of your choice.

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. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,582 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

Oyster plants
Form the bulk of the fritter and give it a soft, tender interior.
Eggs
Bind the mashed mixture together so the fritters hold their shape.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the mixture firm up enough to hold together in the oil.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls into hot oil and fry until browned. If the oil is not hot enough, the fritters absorb excess oil and turn greasy instead of crisping. Frying in hot oil seals the surface quickly, and browning adds flavor through the Maillard reaction.

“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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