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Fried Halibut or Salmon Steaks

Fried fish steaks seasoned with salt and sugar, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, and fried in butter and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Halibut or Salmon Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle steaks on both sides with coarse sea salt and sugar.

  2. Let stand for at least one hour.

  3. Drain off liquid.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in equal parts butter and lard.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut or salmon steaks
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to flaky and opaque as it fries.
Egg
Acts as a binder that helps the bread crumbs stick to the fish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that contrasts with the tender fish inside.
Butter
Adds browning and rich flavor to the frying fat.
Lard
Provides a high-temperature frying fat that crisps the coating without burning quickly.

The step that matters

Drain off liquid before coating. Surface moisture from the salted fish would dilute the egg and loosen the crumbs, so they may slide off or steam instead of crisping in the hot fat.

“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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