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Potato Fritters

A fried potato batter mixed with eggs, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg, served with a sweet sherry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Potato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then lightly mash them with a fork.

  2. Beat the eggs well, leaving out one egg white.

  3. Add the cream, sweet wine, lemon juice, nutmeg, and mashed potatoes to the eggs.

  4. Beat the mixture for at least 20 minutes until very light.

Fry the fritters

  1. Heat plenty of lard in a frying pan.

  2. Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard.

  3. Fry the fritters until they are a nice brown color.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Mix sherry with strained lemon juice and enough white sugar to sweeten it.

  2. Warm the mixture.

  3. Serve the sauce separately in a tureen.

  4. Serve the fritters on a white doily, sprinkled with powdered sugar.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide bulk and a soft, tender body to the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and, when beaten, add lightness and structure to the fritters.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the fritters a softer crumb.
Sweet wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the batter.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the batter and the sauce.

The step that matters

Beating the batter for at least 20 minutes. Long beating traps air in the egg mixture, which gives the fritters their light, airy texture. Under-beaten batter will yield dense fritters.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg, sugar, sherry):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg, sugar, sherry. 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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