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Dessert

Fried Cream

A thickened milk mixture with onion, parsley, and eggs, fried into golden shapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and brown the chopped onion and parsley.

  2. Mix the flour with the milk (or cream) and pour into the saucepan.

  3. Add salt and cook over low heat for 45 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat, stir in the egg yolks, and cook for another 30 minutes.

  5. Pour the mixture into a greased dish and let it cool.

Coat and fry

  1. Cut into small shapes, dip each in beaten egg white, then coat with bread crumbs or semolina.

  2. Fry in boiling oil until golden brown 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.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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
Thickens the milk into a stiff mixture that sets as it cools.
Milk or cream
Provides the liquid that the flour thickens into a rich, creamy base.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and add richness and body as it sets.
Egg white
Acts as a binder so the crumb coating sticks to the shapes.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, helping the onion and parsley brown gently.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture long and stirring constantly. The flour starch must cook fully to thicken and set the mixture firmly. Stirring prevents scorching on the base of the pan and keeps the texture smooth, so the cooled mixture can be cut into shapes that hold together when fried.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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