Skip to main content
Main

Spinach Fritters

Spinach fritters are fried patties made from boiled spinach, cream or Allemande sauce, butter, egg yolks, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Spinach Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. In a flat saucepan, combine the chopped spinach and cream or Allemande sauce.

  2. Cook over medium heat until reduced, then set aside to cool.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then add the butter and egg yolks. Mix well.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat clarified butter in a frying pan.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the spinach mixture into the pan, ensuring they do not touch.

  3. Fry until golden brown on both sides.

  4. Serve on a napkin and garnish with fried parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Spinach + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Spinach
Forms the bulk of the fritter and gives it its green color and savory flavor.
Cream or allemande sauce
Adds moisture and richness so the spinach mixture stays tender and smooth.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set, giving the fritters structure as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the mixture.
Clarified butter
Fries the fritters with a high smoke point, promoting even browning without burning.

The step that matters

Cook the spinach until reduced and cool it before adding the yolks. Excess water in the spinach would thin the mixture and make the fritters soggy or prevent them from holding shape. Reducing it concentrates the flavor. Adding hot yolks to a warm mixture can scramble them, so cooling first keeps the binding smooth.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, pepper, nutmeg, butter, egg, parsley):

  1. Spinachthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, nutmeg, butter, egg, parsley. 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.

You might also like

Spinach SoupSpinach Soup50 recipesCream of SpinachCream of Spinach29 recipesCreamed Spinach SoupCreamed Spinach Soup19 recipesSpinach and EggsSpinach and Eggs8 recipes