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Mutton Fritters

Mutton fritters are small pieces of roast mutton coated in a batter of flour, butter, eggs, and water, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mutton Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour with a little coarse sea salt and water until smooth.

  2. Stir in the melted butter and beaten eggs.

Prepare the mutton

  1. Remove the mutton from the tin and cut it into small, neat slices.

  2. Dredge the slices with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the slices in the batter and fry until golden brown on both sides.

  2. Drain on paper for a minute before serving hot, garnished with cut lemon.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  4. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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, giving the fritter body once it sets in the hot fat.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set and brown during frying.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the batter.
Roast mutton
Provides the main savory filling, cooked through by the batter and frying.

The step that matters

Frying the battered slices. The fat must be hot enough to set the batter quickly and brown it; if it is too cool, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy and pale instead of crisp and golden.

“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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