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Dessert

Spanish Fritters

A sweet batter of rice flour, milk, lemon rind, sugar, and macaroons, formed into balls, breaded, fried, and dusted with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Spanish Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a pot, combine rice flour, salt, lemon rind, milk, sugar, and crushed macaroons.

  2. Heat the mixture on the stove, then add the eggs and stir until combined.

  3. Remove from heat and let the batter cool.

Fry and serve

  1. Form the batter into balls, then dip each ball in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the breaded balls in hot oil until golden brown.

  3. Dust with sugar before serving.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  2. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Rice + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice flour
Provides the starch that thickens the batter and gives the fritters body.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during heating, giving the fritters structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter and helps it cook into a tender interior.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown when fried.
Crushed macaroons
Add almond flavour and sweetness, and some body to the batter.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Let the batter cool before shaping. A warm, loose batter is hard to form into balls and may slump or stick to the hands. Cooling lets the starch and egg set so the balls hold their shape through breading and frying.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, flour, milk, sugar, egg, bread. 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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