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Potato Fritters

A fried potato dish with batter of flour, oil, water, egg white, salt, pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour salad oil and tepid water into the center, and beat well.

  3. Whip the egg white to stiff peaks and gently fold it into the mixture.

Fry the fritters

  1. Quarter the boiled potatoes and dip each piece into the batter.

  2. Fry in hot clarified fat for 3 minutes until golden.

  3. Remove and drain excess grease.

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. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together157 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. White pepper + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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, setting into a crisp coating when fried.
Egg white
Whipped to stiff peaks, it adds lightness and airiness to the batter.
Boiled potatoes
Form the soft, moist interior of each fritter.
Salad oil
Adds fat that keeps the batter tender and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg white. Stiff egg white holds air bubbles that make the batter light. Folding gently preserves those bubbles; stirring vigorously deflates them and leaves the fritters dense.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour, egg. 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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