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Fritters, Indian

A batter of flour, water, eggs fried in lard, served with jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fritters, Indian

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour with enough boiling water to form a stiff paste, stirring well to avoid lumps.

  2. Let the mixture cool slightly, then add the egg yolks and egg whites without beating them first, and stir until well combined.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the lard or clarified dripping in a pan. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot fat and fry until golden brown.

  2. Serve the fritters on a dish, placing a spoonful of jam or marmalade between each fritter.

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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Forms the stiff paste structure when mixed with boiling water, giving the fritters body.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter together as it cooks.
Egg whites
Set during frying, giving the fritters a light, tender structure.
Hot lard or clarified dripping
Conducts heat to brown the outside and adds savoury flavour and crispness.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour that contrasts with the savoury fried batter.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs to the cooled paste. The paste should cool slightly before the eggs go in, so the heat does not cook the eggs on contact. Adding them unbeaten keeps the batter smooth and stops it from becoming tough or scrambled.

“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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