Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Fried Hops
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Prepare the hops as in the previous recipe.
Drain the hops, then dry them on a napkin.
Parboil the hops for 5 minutes, then immerse them in cold water.
Dry the hops again on a napkin.
Combine the hops with lemon juice, salt, and pepper in an earthen bowl, then set the mixture aside.
Drain the hops.
Fry and serve
Lightly flour the hops.
Dip the hops in a frying batter.
Fry the hops one at a time in hot lard until cooked.
Drain the fried hops and season them with salt and pepper.
Serve the fried hops on a napkin.
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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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
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Hops + lemontop 40% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Hops
- Main ingredient; parboiling softens them before they are fried in batter.
- Flour
- Dusting helps the frying batter cling evenly to the hops.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fried hops.
The step that matters
Fry the hops one at a time in hot lard. Frying in hot fat sets the batter quickly and browns it, while crowding the pan drops the fat temperature, causing greasy, soggy 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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