Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Meat Batter
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix flour and melted butter in a bowl.
Add warm water gradually to form a soft paste and beat until smooth.
Continue adding warm water until the batter reaches fritter consistency.
Season with salt.
Just before dipping the cold meat, fold in the well-frothed egg whites.
Coat and fry
Prepare the cold meat by dipping it in the batter.
Fry the battered meat in a frying pan until golden brown.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour and butter 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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the batter and thickens it into a coating.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and helps the coating brown.
- Egg whites
- Whipped foam lightens the batter and helps it puff and set around the meat.
The step that matters
Fold in the egg whites just before dipping. Beaten egg white foam collapses over time, so folding it in at the last moment keeps the batter light and helps the coating puff when fried.
“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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