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Ham Fritters

Fried ham balls coated in batter served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Ham Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ham filling

  1. Heat the soup stock to boiling point.

  2. Thicken the stock with butter and flour rubbed together.

  3. Stir in the minced ham, dry mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and beaten egg.

  4. Let boil for 1 minute, then remove from heat to cool.

  5. Once cooled, form the mixture into small balls.

Fry and serve

  1. Make a batter with flour, melted butter, warm water, beaten egg white, and salt.

  2. Drop the ham balls into the batter and fry in boiling fat.

  3. Serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Minced ham
Provides the main savoury filling that the balls are built around.
Egg
Binds the ham mixture so it holds together when formed into balls.
Flour
Thickens the stock and forms the structure of the batter that coats the balls.
Egg white
Adds lift and a light, crisp texture to the batter.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the thickened stock and batter.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before forming the balls. A hot, loose mixture is too soft to shape and will fall apart. Cooling lets the thickened starch and egg set so the balls keep their form in the hot fat.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, sauce, butter, 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.

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