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Pea Fritters

Pea fritters are a batter of mashed peas, eggs, milk, flour, and butter, fried until golden.

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 ↓

Pea Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Drain the liquid from the can of peas and place them in a saucepan or double boiler.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and sugar, then boil until the peas are very soft.

  3. Drain the peas, rub them through a colander, and mash until smooth.

  4. Add melted butter to the peas until a smooth paste is obtained.

Make and fry the batter

  1. Stir in the beaten eggs, 1 teaspoon of butter, milk, and flour to form a stiff batter.

  2. Heat a buttered griddle and fry small spoonfuls of the batter until browned on both sides.

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  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

Peas
Form the main body of the fritters, giving them their flavor and bulk.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the fritters as they cook.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the batter so it holds its shape on the griddle.
Milk
Loosens the batter and adds moisture for a tender interior.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the fritters brown on the griddle.

The step that matters

Mashing the peas to a smooth paste. Any lumps or fibrous skins left in the peas will make the batter uneven and the fritters rough in texture. Pressing the peas through a colander and mashing them fully gives a smooth base that binds evenly with the eggs and flour.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, butter, 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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