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Meat Fritters

A batter‑coated meat slice fried in lard until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Meat Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour with tepid water, melted butter, and the yolks of the eggs to form a smooth batter.

  2. Sift in the salt and set the batter aside for several hours or overnight.

  3. Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff, then gently fold them into the batter.

Fry and drain

  1. Dip thin slices of meat into the batter, ensuring they are well coated.

  2. Heat lard in a kettle until boiling hot.

  3. Carefully place the battered meat slices into the hot lard, ensuring they do not touch each other.

  4. Cook until nicely browned, turning to ensure even cooking on both sides.

  5. Remove the fritters with a skimmer and drain on paper towels.

  6. Skim the lard after each batch to remove any sediment.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, while whipped whites add airy lift to the coating.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure, which clings to the meat and sets when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the batter.
Tepid water
Hydrates the flour to make a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Keeping the slices apart in the hot lard. Slices that touch cool the fat and stick together, so they steam instead of browning. Hot fat sets the batter quickly, giving a crisp, even coating.

“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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