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Macaroni and Onion Fritters

A fried fritter made from macaroni, onions, breadcrumbs, eggs, and seasonings, served with brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Macaroni and Onion Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stew the macaroni in water until tender, then drain and cut into pieces.

  2. Boil and chop the onions.

Make and fry the fritters

  1. In a bowl, combine the macaroni, chopped onions, moistened breadcrumbs, and beaten eggs.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Fry the mixture in butter or oil until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown gravy.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Onions
Form the bulk of the fritters and add sweetness and moisture.
Macaroni
Adds body and starch so the fritters hold together as they cook.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the mixture into a shapeable mass.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, giving the fritters structure.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. Frying over steady heat browns the outside through the Maillard reaction while the inside sets. Too little heat leaves the fritters greasy and pale, and too much burns the outside before the centre is cooked.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, butter. 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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