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Forcemeat Fritters

Fritters made from bread crumbs, butter, eggs, cream, herbs, and forcemeat, served with brown sauce and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 455 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Forcemeat Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Rub the butter into the bread crumbs.

  2. Add the parsley, leeks, and herbs; season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Mix the whole together with the well-beaten eggs and cream.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry into fritters, along with 2 hard-boiled, sliced eggs.

  2. Place the eggs around the fritters and serve with brown sauce and currant jelly.

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. Marjoram + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together863 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Leek + winter savorytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together70 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Leek + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the main body of the mixture, which the butter, eggs and cream bind together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, holding the fritters together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the crumbs as they cook.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Mix the whole together with the well-beaten eggs and cream. The eggs must be evenly distributed so the crumb mixture binds well. Eggs set when heated, so a mixture that is too wet or unevenly bound may fall apart in the pan.

Swap the winter savory

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, egg, cream, parsley, leek, marjoram):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Winter savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, egg, cream, parsley, leek, marjoram. 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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