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Potato Fritters

A fried batter of boiled potatoes, eggs, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg, served with a wine-lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Boil the potatoes until tender, then scrape them finely.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and egg whites together.

  3. Add the scraped potatoes, cream, sweet wine, lemon juice, and nutmeg to the eggs.

  4. Beat the batter for at least 30 minutes until very light.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a good amount of fine lard in a stew-pan.

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

  3. Serve with a sauce made of white wine, lemon juice, peach-leaf or almond water, and warmed sugar.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter while enriching its colour and flavour.
Egg whites
Whipped air into the batter, lightening it and helping the fritters rise and stay tender.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the batter smooth and the fritters tender.

The step that matters

Beat the batter for at least 30 minutes until very light. Long beating incorporates air into the eggs, which lightens the batter and helps the fritters puff and cook up tender rather than dense.

Swap the potato

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

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

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