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Pea Fritters or Cakes

Pea fritters made from mashed peas mixed into a batter of eggs, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and butter, then pan‑fried.

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 or Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Cook 3 cups of peas until tender, then mash while hot with a wooden spoon, seasoning with pepper, salt, and butter.

  2. Set the mashed peas aside until the next morning.

Make and cook the batter

  1. In a bowl, make a batter by whipping 2 eggs, adding 1 cup of milk, ¼ teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon cream of tartar, and ½ cup flour.

  2. Stir the pea mixture into the batter, beating well.

  3. Cook on a griddle as you would ordinary pancakes.

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

Peas
Provide the main bulk and flavor, becoming a soft mash that thickens the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during cooking.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the fritters body so they hold their shape.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas, helping the fritters rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with the baking soda to lighten the batter.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Beating the pea mixture into the batter. Mashed peas must be fully incorporated so no lumps remain. Beating well develops the batter evenly, and a light, even mix helps the leavening from baking soda and cream of tartar work consistently across each fritter.

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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