Skip to main content

Grilled Catfish with a Lemon Garlic Marinade

The perfect balance of flavours in a smoky grilled catfish!

Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Garlic and catfish work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 133 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 5
Prep1 hr
Cook15 min

Ingredients

Contains: fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Juice the lemon into a non-metal bowl. Add the minced garlic, chopped onion, salt, pepper and olive oil, and whisk to combine.

  2. Place the catfish fillets in a shallow dish, pour the marinade over them and turn to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

  3. Preheat the grill to medium-high, about 400°F (204°C), and oil the grates.

  4. Remove the fillets from the marinade and discard the leftover marinade, since it has touched raw fish.

  5. Grill the fillets for 4 to 5 minutes per side, until the internal temperature reaches 145°F (63°C) or the flesh is opaque and flakes easily.

  6. Transfer the fillets to a plate, rest for 2 minutes, and serve.

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Garlic + catfishtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together133 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Garlic + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together23,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Lemon + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,849 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, garlic, pepper, olive, catfish):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Spinachabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, garlic, pepper, olive, catfish. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).