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Dessert

Banana Fritters

Banana fritters are bananas coated in icing sugar, orange juice, beaten egg, biscuit dust, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,118 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Banana Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bananas in half crosswise and place them in a dish.

  2. Sprinkle the icing sugar over the bananas.

  3. Pour the orange juice over the bananas and set aside in a cool place for 1 hour, turning occasionally.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the bananas alternately in beaten egg and biscuit dust.

  2. Fry the coated bananas in hot oil until golden brown.

  3. Serve with sauce of your choice.

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. Banana + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Orange + biscuittop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together371 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Banana + biscuittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Banana + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Form the main body of the fritter, softening into a moist, sweet filling when fried.
Beaten egg
Binds the biscuit dust to the bananas so the coating stays on during frying.
Biscuit dust
Forms a crisp, browned coating when fried in hot oil.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and fruity aroma while the bananas rest in it.

The step that matters

Frying the coated bananas in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it browns. Hot oil sets the coating quickly, giving a crisp golden crust and keeping the banana inside moist.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (banana, sugar, egg, biscuit):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, sugar, egg, biscuit. 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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