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Fried Salsify Cakes

Fried salsify cakes are cakes made from boiled and mashed salsify mixed with flour and egg, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Fried Salsify Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salsify

  1. Boil the salsify until tender.

  2. Mash the boiled salsify through a colander.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

Shape and fry

  1. Add flour and one beaten egg to the mixture.

  2. Form into cakes and fry in hot oil 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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Salsify
Provides the main body and flavour of the cakes once mashed.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the mixture hold together while frying.
Egg
Binds the mashed salsify so the cakes keep their shape.

The step that matters

Form into cakes and fry in hot oil until golden brown. The oil must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb oil, turn greasy and can fall apart before a crust forms.

“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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