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Greek Peas Fritter

A fried patty made from mashed peas, eggs, milk, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Greek Peas Fritter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Cook 3 cups of peas until tender, then mash while hot.

  2. Season the mashed peas with pepper, salt, and butter.

  3. In the bowl, mix in the beaten eggs, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and flour.

  4. Stir the mashed peas into the mixture thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Cook on a griddle like pancakes until golden brown.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set when cooked.
Flour
Provides the starch that gives the fritters body and holds them together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lightens the texture.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with the baking soda to help the batter rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it spreads on the griddle.
Peas
Form the bulk of the fritters, providing body, moisture, and mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook on a griddle like pancakes until golden brown. The batter is thick and moist, so heat must be moderate to cook the centre through before the outside browns too quickly. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction on the surface, which needs dry, hot contact but not scorching.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Peasthe original

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