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Dessert

Curd Fritters

Batter of dried curd, egg yolks, egg whites, sugar, and flour fried in butter or lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Curd Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a mortar, combine the dried curd, egg yolks, beaten egg whites, sifted sugar, and flour, and mix until well combined to form a batter.

Fry

  1. Heat butter or lard in a frying pan over medium heat.

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

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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

Dried curd
Forms the body of the fritters, giving them a soft, substantial interior.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter together.
Egg whites
Beaten whites add air and lightness, helping the fritters rise and stay tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the pan.
Flour
Adds a little starch to help hold the batter together while frying.

The step that matters

Frying the spoonfuls of batter. The pan must be hot enough that the outside sets and browns quickly, while the inside cooks through. If the heat is too low, the fritters absorb fat and turn greasy and pale; if too high, the outside burns before the centre is cooked.

“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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