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Potato Fritters

Potato fritters made by mashing boiled potatoes, coating in a beaten egg and cream mixture, then frying until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Potato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil potatoes until tender, then mash finely.

  2. Beat egg yolks and egg whites until light.

  3. Add cream, sweet wine, lemon juice, and powdered nutmeg to eggs and mix well.

Fry

  1. Dip mashed potatoes into the batter.

  2. Heat a griddle and fry the fritters until browned.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  3. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the fritters and give a soft, tender interior.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter.
Egg whites
Whipped to lightness, they give the batter air and a lighter texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the batter.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs until light. Whipping the eggs incorporates air that lightens the batter and helps the fritters puff and stay tender rather than dense. Under-beaten eggs give a heavier result.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, wine, lemon, nutmeg. 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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