Today we made another traditional Ukrainian dish, suggested by my ENGin buddy.
The dish, Pea Cutlets / Січеники з гороху, is a simple recipe using dried peas. We found a recipe on the delightful Ukrainian food site Shuba.
We can easily maintain this wonderful tradition, because the dish is very simple, affordable, tasty and healthy. Use ground pea groats for cooking. Don’t forget to soak the peas in advance.
Ingredients
- Pea groats: 2 collections.
- Cold water: 1.5 l
- Yellow onion: 1 pc.
- Breadcrumbs: 3 tbsp.
- Salt: to taste
- Ground black pepper: to taste
- Sunflower oil
How to cook pea sicheniky
- Rinse and place the peas in a deep, large saucepan. Cover with cool water and leave overnight or for 4-6 hours.
- Pour the peas into a colander and rinse. Hold the colander over a saucepan or sink to drain any excess liquid.
- Peel the onion and cut it into cubes.
- Blend the peas and onions very well in a blender or pass through a meat grinder 2 times.
- Add salt and pepper to taste to the minced meat. Mix.
- Prepare a plate of breadcrumbs.
- Form the minced meat into cutlets and roll in breadcrumbs.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat.
- Fry the cutlets for 2-3 minutes on each side.
Place the finished sicheniky on a plate lined with paper towels. Enjoy!
Shuba
At the WLBOTT Test Kitchen, the Ladle & Lube, we made two executive decisions:
- We used HEB dried split peas, since we had no idea what pea groats were.
- We’d make a batch fried in sunflower oil, and another batch in the air fryer.
Thoughts / Reflections
- Very easy to make. The recipe goes quickly after the peas have soaked.
- Both cooking methods yielded tasty results, but the fried version was much better.
- Well-paired condiments: Jalapeno mayonnaise, sour cream
- Clean-up was a bear: frying is always messy, plus the clean-up of the food processor and air fryer. We were grateful for our unpaid interns.
Preparing the Ingredients
Blenderization
Frying
Air Frying
Bon Appétit!
Clean-Up
