Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
The recipe
six filletsIngredients
Contains: wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare the sauce
Prepare a broth with the trimmings from the brill.
Strain the broth through a fine sieve to make a smooth sauce.
Add parsley and gherkins to the sauce.
Keep the sauce warm in a bain-marie.
Prepare and fry the fillets
Remove the skin, bones, and trimmings from the brill to make six neat fillets.
Bread-crumb the fillets.
Fry the breaded fillets in boiling fat until golden.
Drain the fillets. Dry the fillets.
Sprinkle the fillets with salt.
Serve
Serve the fillets on a hot dish garnished with parsley and lemon, with the sauce on the side.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together14,036 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Parsley + breadtop 10% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together8,588 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Bread + lemontop 13% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together8,433 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
- Brill
- Forms the delicate white flesh that is the main part of the dish.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp golden coating that browns when fried.
- Broth
- Provides the liquid base for the smooth sauce.
- Gherkins
- Add sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the sauce.
- Parsley
- Adds fresh, herbal aroma to the sauce.
The step that matters
Fry the fillets in boiling fat until golden. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the crumb quickly. If it is too cool, the breaded coating absorbs fat and turns greasy, and the delicate fish overcooks before the crust browns.
“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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