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Onion and Sage Pritters

A fried batter of onions, sage, eggs, and breadcrumbs served with brown and apple sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Onion and Sage Pritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Boil the onions in two waters until soft.

  2. Chop the onions finely.

Make the fritter mixture

  1. Add the powdered sage, pepper, salt, and beaten eggs to the onions.

  2. Mix in the bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the mixture in fritters over a clear fire.

  2. Serve with brown sauce and apple sauce.

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

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sage + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the bulk and mild sweetness of the fritter once softened by boiling.
Eggs
Bind the chopped onions and crumbs together and help the fritters set when fried.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so it holds its shape while frying.
Powdered sage
Adds a warm, aromatic herbal flavour that suits the onions.

The step that matters

Boiling the onions until soft. Onions hold a lot of water and sharp sulfur compounds. Boiling until fully soft mellows the flavour and removes excess moisture, so the mixture binds properly and does not make soggy fritters.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, egg, bread, pepper. 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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