Skip to main content
Main

Pea Fritters

Pea fritters made from cold lentil porridge or pea brose, breadcrumbs, herbs, onion, pepper, salt, fried in butter or oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pea Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix cold lentil porridge or pea brose with breadcrumbs.

  2. Add chopped herbs, onion, pepper, and salt.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into flat cakes and coat with flour.

  2. Fry in butter or oil 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Lentil porridge or pea brose
Forms the moist base that holds the fritter mixture together.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the mixture so the cakes hold their shape.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it cooks into the mixture.
Butter or oil
Conducts heat in the pan and promotes browning on the outside of the cakes.

The step that matters

Fry in butter or oil until golden brown. Frying over steady heat browns the outside through the Maillard reaction, building flavour and a crisp crust. Cakes that are too hot brown before the centre heats, while cakes that are too cool absorb fat and turn greasy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes