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Pineapple Fritters

A fried batter coating pineapple slices, served dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and pineapple work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 885 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Pineapple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg separately.

  2. Mix the yolk with milk, salt, and enough flour to create a stiff batter.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg white and baking powder.

Fry and serve

  1. Cut each pineapple slice in half and dip in the batter.

  2. Fry the battered pineapple in very hot lard until golden.

  3. Drain on paper towels, sprinkle with powdered sugar, and serve on a napkin-covered dish.

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. Milk + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Egg
Egg white folded in adds lightness, while the yolk enriches the batter and helps it bind.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the batter puff and turn light and airy.
Flour
Forms the structure of the stiff batter that coats the pineapple and sets when fried.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid to hydrate the flour and create the batter.
Pineapple slices
Provide the sweet, juicy filling that the crisp batter surrounds.

The step that matters

Fry in very hot lard until golden. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy before it sets. Very hot fat seals the coating quickly, producing a crisp, golden exterior and a light texture.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, sugar. 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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