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Parmesan Puffs

Small fried balls made of breadcrumbs, Parmesan, butter, cayenne pepper, and eggs, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Parmesan Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix breadcrumbs, Parmesan cheese, butter, cayenne pepper, and salt in a bowl. Pound the mixture thoroughly until well combined.

  2. Bind the mixture with 1 well-beaten egg.

  3. Shape into balls about the size of a walnut.

Fry and serve

  1. Coat the balls in egg and breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry in plenty of boiling fat until golden brown.

  3. Drain well and serve hot, garnished with 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. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the puffs brown and crisp when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the mixture tender and binds it together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and form a coating that crisps in the hot fat.
Breadcrumbs
Provide bulk and structure, and form a crisp golden outer coating.

The step that matters

Fry in plenty of boiling fat until golden brown. The fat must be deep and hot enough to cook the coated balls quickly. Too cool a fat lets the coating soak up oil and turn greasy before the centre sets.

“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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