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Sage and Onion Fritters

Fritters made from a sage and onion mixture, coated in flour and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sage and Onion Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stuffing

  1. Make sage and onion stuffing by mixing the parboiled onion with sage, pepper, salt, and bread crumbs.

  2. Moisten the mixture with clarified butter until it becomes a moist pulp.

Shape and coat

  1. Roll the mixture into small balls the size of a walnut.

  2. Flatten the balls.

  3. Let the fritters cool completely.

  4. Dust the fritters with flour.

  5. Dip the fritters into batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry them in boiling oil until golden brown.

  2. Remove the fritters with a frying basket.

  3. Serve with fried parsley.

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. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Parboiled onion
Provides the main bulk and soft, sweet flavour of the stuffing.
Dried bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and give the mixture body so it holds its shape.
Clarified butter
Adds moisture and richness to bind the stuffing into a pulp.
Flour
Dries the surface of the fritters so the batter adheres and browns.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling oil until golden brown. The oil must be hot enough to crisp the batter quickly; if it is too cool, the fritters absorb oil and turn greasy before browning.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, pepper, bread, butter, flour, parsley. 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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