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Cauliflower Fritters

A fried dish of parboiled cauliflower coated in a batter of flour, milk, egg yolk, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cauliflower Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the parboiled cauliflower and divide it into branches.

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, milk, whipped egg yolk, melted butter, pepper, and salt to create a batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each cauliflower branch into the batter.

  2. Fry the battered branches in boiling fat until golden brown.

  3. Drain the fritters before serving.

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. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

  3. Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Parboiled cauliflower
Forms the main body of each fritter and stays tender inside the crisp coating.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it coats the cauliflower and crisps when fried.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the batter to the cauliflower.
Milk
Loosens the flour into a pourable batter that clings to each branch.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a richer, golden finish to the batter.

The step that matters

Frying the battered branches in boiling fat until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to set the batter quickly; if it is too cool, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy and soggy instead of crisp and golden.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, butter, pepper. 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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