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Pea Fritters

A savory batter of mashed peas, eggs, milk, flour, and seasonings fried into golden fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Pea Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the peas until tender, then drain and mash them.

  2. While still hot, add the butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then add the beaten eggs, milk, and flour mixed with baking powder.

  4. Stir everything well and fry like griddle cakes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 mashed peas together and add structure to the batter.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the fritters body so they hold their shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the fritters rise and turn light.
Milk
Loosens the batter to a workable consistency and adds moisture.
Green peas
Form the main body of the fritters, providing flavour and bulk.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Beaten eggs added to very hot mash can scramble or cook unevenly, so the mixture should cool before the eggs go in. Baking powder works best when the batter is mixed and fried promptly, so the rise is not lost.

Swap the peas

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

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

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