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Potato Fritters

A fried potato batter with eggs, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg, served with sherry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Potato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Peel and lightly mash the potatoes with a fork.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the 3 eggs well.

  3. Add cream, sweet wine, lemon juice, and nutmeg to the eggs and mix well.

  4. Combine the potato mixture with the egg mixture and beat for at least 20 minutes until very light.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat plenty of lard in a frying pan.

  2. Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard and fry until golden brown.

  3. For the sauce, warm sherry with strained lemon juice and sugar to taste.

  4. Serve the fritters on a white cloth, sprinkled with powdered sugar, and the sauce separately.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and starch that give the fritters their soft, tender body.
Eggs
Bind the batter and, when beaten, add lightness and structure as the fritters set in the fat.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving a softer, more tender interior.
Sweet wine
Adds moisture and a light sweetness and aroma to the batter.

The step that matters

Beating the batter for at least 20 minutes. Long beating traps air in the egg and potato mixture, which makes the batter very light. If it is under-beaten, the fritters will be dense and heavy after frying.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg, sherry, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg, sherry, sauce. 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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