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Pea Pancakes

A savory pancake made with boiled peas, flour, milk, egg, butter, baking powder, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the peas until soft and mash them.

  2. Mix in the butter, salt, pepper, beaten egg, milk, flour, and baking powder until smooth.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a griddle and pour batter to form pancakes.

  2. Cook until golden brown on both sides and serve hot.

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

Peas
Provide the main body and earthy flavour of the batter.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pancakes together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the pancakes rise and lighten.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and loosens the batter for pouring.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown on both sides. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs steady medium heat on a hot griddle. Too little heat leaves the pancakes pale and gummy inside, while too much burns the outside before the centre sets.

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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