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Excellent Fritters

A fried batter of mashed potatoes, apples, eggs, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Excellent Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then peel and mash them.

  2. Mix the mashed potatoes with the flour.

  3. Peel and finely chop the apples, then add them to the potato mixture.

  4. Beat the egg yolks and egg whites, then fold them into the batter.

  5. Grate in a little nutmeg and ginger, and mix well.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a pan until boiling.

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

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. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

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

  5. Potato + gingertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together992 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mealy potatoes
Their starch gives the fritters body and a soft, tender interior.
Flour
Binds the mashed potato so the batter holds its shape in the fat.
Sharp apples
Their acidity and moisture brighten the flavour and keep the inside juicy.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, giving the fritters a tender, savoury-sweet body.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they add air and lightness to the batter.
Lard
Hot fat cooks the outside quickly, producing a crisp, golden crust.

The step that matters

Frying in properly hot lard. The lard must be boiling before the batter goes in. If it is too cool, the batter soaks up fat instead of crisping on the outside, so the fritters turn greasy and heavy.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, flour, egg, nutmeg, ginger):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour, egg, nutmeg, ginger. 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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