Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Fritters

A fried tomato batter with butter, eggs, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Tomato Fritters

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Chop the tomatoes.

  2. Mix the tomatoes with butter in a bowl.

  3. Add the egg yolks, egg white, salt, pepper, cayenne, flour, sugar, and vinegar. Mix well.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat fat in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot fat.

  3. Fry until golden brown on both sides.

  4. Remove from pan.

  5. Drain on paper towels before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and moisture of the fritter mixture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set while frying.
Flour
Adds body to the mixture so the fritters hold their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the fritters brown.

The step that matters

Frying the spoonfuls in hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the fritters absorb excess oil and turn greasy and pale. Hot fat sets the outside quickly and gives a golden crust, so heat the pan before dropping in the mixture.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, pepper, flour, sugar, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, pepper, flour, sugar, vinegar. 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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes