Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Fried Cow-heel, with Onion Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cow-heel
Clean the cow-heel and boil it for 3 hours until very tender.
Remove all bones and compress the meat between two boards with a heavy weight until cold.
Slice the cow-heel into neat rounds, about ⅙ inch thick.
Make the batter and onions
Peel and slice the onions to match the number of cow-heel slices.
In a bowl, mix the eggs, flour, milk, and cream to make a batter. Beat the batter for 30 minutes.
Fry and serve
Dip each slice of cow-heel and onion into the batter.
Heat the oil or butter over low heat.
Fry the cow-heel for 12 minutes.
Fry the onions for 15-20 minutes until pale brown.
Arrange the cow-heel and onion slices alternately in a circle on a serving dish and serve hot.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Cow-heel
- Provides the main meat, which is tenderised by long boiling and pressed to set firm for slicing.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help it set and coat the slices as it fries.
- All-purpose flour
- Thickens the batter so it clings to the cow-heel and onion slices.
- Milk
- Thins the batter to a coating consistency and adds moisture.
- Heavy cream
- Adds richness and fat, softening the batter's texture.
- Spanish onions
- Become sweet and golden in the batter, contrasting with the meat.
The step that matters
Pressing the cow-heel until cold. Compressing the cooked meat while it cools squeezes out excess liquid and lets it set firm, so the slices hold their shape and stay intact when dipped and fried.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, milk, cream, butter):
- Potatofits better
- Leekfits better
- Chivefits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, milk, cream, 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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