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Indian Fritters

A batter of cornmeal, wheat flour, eggs, and milk is fried into golden fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Indian Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine Indian meal, wheat flour, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Beat eggs and add milk until a thick batter forms.

  3. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry until well combined.

Fry

  1. Fry spoonfuls of the batter in hot oil until golden brown on both sides.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Indian meal (cornmeal)
Forms the main body of the fritters and gives them a coarse, slightly crisp texture.
Wheat flour
Adds starch and some gluten to help the batter hold together while frying.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the fritters as they cook.
Milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients so the batter becomes thick and spoonable.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil until golden brown on both sides. Hot oil sets the outside of each fritter quickly and drives browning, so it stays crisp rather than soaking up grease. Oil that is too cool lets the batter absorb oil and cook unevenly.

“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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