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Meat Fritters

A fried dish of cold meat coated in a batter of flour, salt, oil, water, eggs, and clarified dripping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Meat Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour and salt.

  2. Add salad oil and mix into a smooth paste.

  3. Gradually stir in tepid water until no lumps remain.

  4. Separate egg whites and yolks; set yolks aside.

  5. Sprinkle salt over egg whites and whip to stiff peaks.

  6. Gently fold whipped egg whites into the batter.

  7. Let the batter rest for 1 hour.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat clarified dripping in a saucepan.

  2. Dip cold meat into the batter and fry until golden.

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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Meat + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,529 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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's structure once mixed with liquid and resting.
Eggs
Whipped whites add lightness and airy texture to the batter.
Salad oil
Adds fat that keeps the batter smooth and tender.
Clarified dripping
Frying fat that browns the batter's surface and crisps the coating.
Cold meat
Main filling that is coated in batter and fried.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped egg whites into the batter. Overmixing or stirring vigorously knocks air out of the whites, so the fritters turn dense instead of light. Fold gently so the foam stays intact and lifts the batter as it fries.

“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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