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Fried Fish

A fish fillet coated in breadcrumbs and fried until golden, served with crisp parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fried Fish

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thoroughly dry the cleaned fish.

  2. Season the fish with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Roll the fish in fine bread crumbs.

  4. Dip the fish in the beaten eggs.

  5. Roll the fish in the bread crumbs again.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat deep frying oil to 375°F (190°C).

  2. Fry a few pieces of fish at a time for 2 to 5 minutes until they rise to the top.

  3. Drain the fried fish on paper towels and arrange on a folded napkin.

  4. Fry the parsley until crisp, without changing its color, for garnish.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through in hot oil.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot oil.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating holds during frying.
Deep frying oil
Conducts heat to cook the fish quickly and crisp the coating.

The step that matters

Fry a few pieces of fish at a time. Adding too much fish at once drops the oil temperature, so the coating absorbs more oil and turns greasy instead of crisp. Frying in small batches keeps the oil hot.

“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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