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Curd Fritters

Curd fritters are fried batter made from dried curd, eggs, sugar, flour, and fat.

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 ↓

Curd Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a mortar, mash the dried curd until smooth.

  2. Add the egg yolks and beat well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold into the curd mixture.

  4. Stir in the sifted sugar and flour until combined.

Fry

  1. Heat butter or lard in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot fat and fry until golden brown on both sides.

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Dried curd
Forms the body of the fritter batter and gives it its base texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter together.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and help it puff.
Sifted sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fritters brown in the pan.
Flour
Adds a little structure so the batter holds its shape when fried.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that gives lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates the foam and leaves dense fritters.

“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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