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Potato Fritters

A fried potato batter made with eggs, milk, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil and peel the potatoes.

  2. Mash the potatoes well.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, cream or milk, chopped parsley, salt, and pepper to the mashed potatoes and mix well.

  4. Scoop the batter with a teaspoon.

Fry

  1. Drop the batter into a pan of boiling lard or butter.

  2. Fry until the fritters swell and form a light, round shape.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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 batter, giving the fritters their soft, starchy interior.
Eggs
Bind the mashed potatoes together and help the fritters set as they cook.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter, keeping the interior tender.
Lard or butter
Fries the fritters, conducting heat and browning the outside while they swell.

The step that matters

Fry until the fritters swell and form a light, round shape. The batter must be hot enough when dropped in so the outside sets quickly and the fritter puffs. If the fat is not boiling, the batter absorbs fat and turns heavy and greasy instead of light.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, parsley, pepper, butter):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, parsley, pepper, butter. 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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