Skip to main content
Main

Parsnip Fritters

A fried cake made from boiled and mashed parsnips mixed with butter, egg, flour, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsnip and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 669 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Parsnip Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the parsnips until tender, then mash them finely.

  2. Mix in the butter, pepper, beaten egg, and flour.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then form it into small cakes.

  4. Roll the cakes in flour.

Cook

  1. Fry or sauté the cakes in melted drippings 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. Parsnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Parsnip + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Parsnips
Form the bulk of the fritter, providing starchy, sweet body once mashed.
Egg
Binds the mashed parsnips together so the cakes hold their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed parsnips.
All-purpose flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the cakes hold together for frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before forming cakes. A warm, soft mixture is sticky and hard to shape; cooling firms the starch and egg so the cakes keep their form in the pan.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

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

Parsnip CakesParsnip Cakes12 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes