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Curd Fritters

Curd fritters are fried batter made from dried curd, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Curd Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a mortar, rub down the dried curd with the egg yolks, egg whites, sifted sugar, grated nutmeg, and flour until well combined.

Fry

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into a frying pan with melted butter or lard.

  2. Fry 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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Dried curd
Forms the body of the fritters and gives them their substance.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter together.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the fritters set as they cook.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the pan.
Flour
Thickens the batter and helps hold the fritters together.
Butter or lard
Conducts heat for frying and browns the outside of the fritters.

The step that matters

Frying the spoonfuls. The batter needs time to set before it is turned, or it may break apart. Frying in fat at a steady heat lets the outside brown evenly on both sides without the centre staying raw.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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