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Cauliflower Fritters with Cheese

A fried dish of cauliflower pieces coated in a cheese‑egg batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cauliflower Fritters with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the cauliflower until tender but not too soft.

  2. Prepare a frying batter and mix in the egg, grated cheese, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Break the cauliflower into neat pieces and dip them into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop the battered cauliflower into hot oil and fry for three minutes.

  2. Drain on paper and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.

  3. Serve very hot.

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. Cheese + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  5. Egg + parmesan cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the main body of each fritter, cooked until tender before battering.
Egg
Binds the batter so it coats the cauliflower and holds together in the oil.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the batter brown as it fries.

The step that matters

Boil the cauliflower until tender but not too soft. Cauliflower that is undercooked stays firm and may not cook through in the short frying time, while overcooked pieces turn mushy and fall apart in the batter and oil.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cheese, pepper, parmesan cheese. 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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