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Potato Fritters

A fried potato batter with eggs, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg, served with a sweet wine and lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Potato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then scrape them finely.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and egg whites together.

  3. Add the cream, sweet wine, lemon juice, and nutmeg to the eggs and mix well.

  4. Beat the batter for at least 30 minutes until light.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a good amount of fine lard in a stewpan.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard and fry until golden.

  3. For the sauce, warm together white wine, lemon juice, peach‑leaf or almond water, and sugar.

  4. Serve the fritters with the sauce on the side.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Nutmeg + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + peachtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together947 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and soft body of the fritter batter.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter while setting in the hot fat.
Egg whites
Whipped air lightens the batter so the fritters puff and stay tender.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat, giving a softer, richer interior.
Sweet wine
Adds moisture and sweetness, with aroma that carries into the batter.
Lard
Frying fat that carries heat and browns the outside to a golden crust.

The step that matters

Beat the batter for at least 30 minutes until light. Long beating incorporates air and fully combines the eggs with the potato. Under-beaten batter stays dense and may not puff or fry up light in the hot fat.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg, peach, sugar):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg, peach, sugar. 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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