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Beef Fritters

A fried patty made from minced roast beef mixed with milk, flour, butter, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Beef Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Season the minced beef with pepper and salt.

  2. For 1 lb of meat, mix ½ pint of milk or water with ½ lb of flour to make a batter. For 2 lbs of meat, double the quantities.

  3. Add 1 ½ oz of melted butter and the whisked egg whites to the batter, then stir in the minced meat.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter into boiling fat, keeping them separated.

  2. Fry until brown on both sides, about 10 minutes.

  3. Drain the fritters and serve on a napkin.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the batter structure that holds the minced beef together while frying.
Eggs
Egg whites set when fried, binding the fritters and adding lightness.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the fritters brown.
Milk or water
Hydrates the flour so it forms a pourable batter.

The step that matters

Keeping the fritters separated in the fat. Dropping the batter in clumps lets the fritters stick together and cook unevenly. Spacing them lets each one brown on all sides and keeps the fat temperature steady.

“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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