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Swedish Timbals

A fried batter shaped with a timbal iron, served with fillings like creamed oysters, chicken, or meat salad.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Swedish Timbals

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Add salt, sugar, and milk to the eggs and stir well.

  3. Gradually mix in the flour, beating until smooth.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a kettle of hot fat.

  2. Dip the timbal iron into the hot fat, then into the batter, and back into the fat.

  3. Fry until light brown.

  4. Remove and place on paper to absorb excess grease.

  5. These are better the second day. Fill with creamed oysters, chicken, or meat salad.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs give the batter structure and help the timbals set and hold their shape when fried.
Flour
Forms the batter's main structure, so the fried shells keep their crisp, hollow form.
Milk
Thins the batter to a pourable consistency and adds moisture and softness to the shell.
Salad oil or melted butter
Fat for the batter that adds richness and tenderness, and the hot fat that fries the shells golden.

The step that matters

Dipping the iron into the hot fat before the batter. The iron must be well heated before it meets the batter, so the batter sets on contact and the shell releases cleanly instead of sliding off or soaking up grease.

“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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