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Dessert

Sweet Potato Fritters

Sweet potato fritters are fried cakes made from boiled sweet potatoes, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and coated with cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil, skin, and dry the sweet potatoes in an open oven.

  2. Mash the potatoes while warm and rub through a colander or vegetable press.

  3. Stir in the milk, butter, salt, sugar, and beaten egg yolks.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into flat cakes with floured hands.

  2. Dip each cake into the frothed egg whites, then coat with cracker crumbs.

  3. Chill the cakes on ice for 2 hours.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in deep, boiling fat until golden brown.

  2. Serve with lemon sauce.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sweet potato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together596 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Sweet potato + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,151 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Provide the bulk and starchy body that holds the fritter together.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help bind it into a cohesive, tender interior.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they form a light coating that helps crumbs adhere.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the mashed potato mixture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer texture in the mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and supports browning of the coated surface during frying.

The step that matters

Chill the cakes on ice for 2 hours. Chilling firms the fat and starch in the shaped cakes so they hold their shape. Cold cakes are less likely to break or fall apart when they hit the hot fat, giving a cleaner crust.

Swap the sweet potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, egg):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Sweet potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, 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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