Skip to main content
Main

Fritters

A batter of flour, milk, butter, egg whites, and shredded beef is fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Fritters

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour with water or milk to form a smooth batter.

  2. Stir in the melted butter and the whisked egg whites.

  3. Add the shredded beef, salt, pepper, and nutmeg; mix well.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into boiling lard or dripping.

  2. Drain well from the fat and serve hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

Flour
Forms the batter's structure, giving the fritters body once cooked.
Egg whites
Set when heated, binding the mixture and giving the fritters a light texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing moisture and flavour to the batter.
Roast beef
Provides the main savoury filling that gives the fritters their flavour.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls into boiling fat. The fat must be hot enough to set the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the batter soaks up grease and turns heavy and oily instead of crisp.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes