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Fritters

A fried potato batter made with eggs, cream, sweet wine, lemon, and nutmeg, served with a sweet wine and lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Fritters

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 ↓

Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the potatoes and scrape them finely.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and whites together.

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

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

Fry and serve

  1. Heat fine lard in a stew-pan.

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

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

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Nutmeg + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + peachtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together947 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk of the batter, giving body and a soft, tender interior when fried.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter together.
Egg whites
Beaten into the batter to lighten it and help the fritters rise and stay airy.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the batter.

The step that matters

Beat the batter for at least 30 minutes until light. Long beating incorporates air into the egg and potato mixture, which expands in the hot fat and keeps the fritters light rather than dense.

Swap the peach

The recipe marks peach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg, sugar):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

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