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Beetroot Fritters

Beetroot fritters are fried beetroot and onion rounds coated in béchamel and batter, served with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beetroot Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the beetroot and onion until cooked.

  2. Remove the skin from the beetroot.

  3. Slice the beetroot into thin rounds.

  4. Stamp out equal-sized rounds.

  5. Season the beetroot slices with vinegar, salt, and pepper.

  6. Finely chop the boiled onion. Moisten it with thick béchamel sauce.

  7. Spread the béchamel mixture on one side of each beetroot slice.

  8. Sandwich two slices together. Press lightly.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip in frying batter.

  2. Drop the fritters one by one into boiling fat or lard.

  3. Fry for five minutes.

  4. Drain on a cloth. Sprinkle with pepper.

  5. Serve on a folded napkin garnished with crisped 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Beetroot + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together745 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beetroot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,261 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Beetroot
Forms the main body of each fritter and adds its earthy flavour and colour.
Spanish onion
Adds savoury sweetness and moisture to the filling once chopped and mixed with sauce.
Thick béchamel sauce
Binds the chopped onion into a spreadable filling that holds the slices together.
Frying batter
Forms a crisp golden coating that seals in moisture while the fritter fries.

The step that matters

Drop the fritters into boiling fat. Fat that is not hot enough lets the batter soak up oil and turn greasy, while overly hot fat browns the coating before the filling heats through. Frying at a steady high temperature gives a crisp exterior and a hot centre.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beetroot, vinegar, pepper, sauce, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beetroot, vinegar, pepper, sauce, 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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