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Cheese Fritters

Cheese fritters are small fried cakes made from cornflour, Parmesan cheese, egg, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cheese Fritters

Why it works: Parmesan cheese and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,322 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cheese Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the cornflour and grated Parmesan cheese.

  2. Moisten the mixture with the yolk of the egg.

  3. Whip the egg white until stiff and fold it into the cheese mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into very hot frying fat.

  2. Fry 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.

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

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

  2. Parmesan cheese + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Cornflour
Provides the starch that gives the fritters a light, set structure as it cooks.
Grated parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and browns in the hot fat, giving the fritters their crisp golden crust.
Egg
The yolk binds the mixture, and the whipped white adds lightness and airiness.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg white. Whipped egg white traps air that makes the fritters rise and stay light. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps those bubbles intact so the fritters do not turn dense.

“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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