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Parsnip Fritters.— No. 2

Parsnip fritters made from boiled, mashed parsnips mixed with flour, egg, and salt, shaped into cakes, fried in lard and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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.— No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the parsnips

  1. Boil the parsnips for 1.5 hours.

  2. Peel and mash the parsnips very fine.

  3. Mix in the flour, beaten egg, and salt.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into small round cakes and sprinkle a pinch of sugar on each.

  2. Heat lard and butter in a skillet.

  3. Fry the cakes until golden brown on each side, then serve.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Flour + eggtop 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).

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

Parsnips
Form the bulk of the cakes, providing starch, sweetness and a soft, mashable body.
Egg
Binds the mashed parsnip so the cakes hold their shape while frying.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the mixture firm up enough to shape into cakes.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and helps the cakes brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes until golden brown on each side. The surface needs enough hot fat to brown through the Maillard reaction, which builds flavour and a crisp crust. If the pan is too cool, the cakes absorb grease and fall apart, and if too hot, they scorch before the centre is heated.

Swap the parsnip

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

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

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