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Ham Fritters

Ham fritters made with minced ham, fat, egg, bread crumbs, and spices, served on French roll slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ham Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix minced ham and fat with egg, bread crumbs, cream, white pepper, and cayenne.

  2. Soak slices of French rolls in milk and beaten egg briefly.

  3. Fry soaked rolls lightly in hot butter and drain on a cloth.

  4. Spread ham mixture thickly on both sides of the fried rolls.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip in beaten egg and coat with fried bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in clarified butter for 10 minutes in a wire basket.

  3. Drain, serve on a folded napkin, and garnish with crispy parsley.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Forms the savoury filling that gives the fritters their meaty body and flavour.
Ham fat
Adds richness and moisture so the filling stays tender rather than dry when fried.
Egg
Binds the ham mixture and sets during cooking to hold the fritter together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body, while crumbs coating the outside brown crisply.
French rolls
Act as the base that soaks up milk and egg, then provides a sturdy structure for the filling.

The step that matters

Fry in clarified butter. Clarified butter has no milk solids to burn, so it browns evenly at frying heat without scorching. Keeping the basket and heat steady helps the coating crisp while the filling heats through.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg, bread, cream, milk, butter, parsley):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, bread, cream, milk, butter, parsley. 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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