Standing at the stove, frying latkes, small Korean scallion pancakes, or any other kind of veggie fritters can be not only a royal pain and time suck, but a real splattering mess.

This clever, alternative technique eliminates all of that — and seems so obvious, you’re sure to think, “Duh! Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”

The solution is oven-frying. Yes, letting your oven do all the heavy lifting by heating up a sheet pan with a generous amount of oil before dropping spoonfuls of your batter onto it, then returning the pan to the oven to cook and crisp up everything.

That’s the method behind these delicious “Zucchini and Herb Fritters.”

It’s a recipe from the new “The Secret of Cooking” (W.W. Norton), of which I received an early review copy.

The cookbook, which comes out on Sept. 26, is by By Bee Wilson, a British food writer and co-founder of TastEd, a food education focused on giving children more opportunities to experience fresh vegetables and fruits.

As the title implies, it’s filled with enticing, doable recipes that just might teach you a new, easier or faster way to prepare something.

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