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Fried Catfish

Fried catfish coated in flour and fried in lard, optionally with egg and breadcrumbs, seasoned with cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Catfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash and clean the catfish, removing heads and tails.

  2. Score the fish along the back with deep gashes.

  3. Dredge the fish in flour.

Fry

  1. Heat plenty of lard in a pan until boiling.

  2. Optionally, dip the fish in a batter of beaten egg and grated bread-crumbs before frying.

  3. Fry the catfish in the hot lard until golden brown.

  4. Drain excess lard before serving.

  5. Sprinkle a little cayenne on each incision before serving.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Catfish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into flaky, tender flesh under the crisp coating.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that browns and crisps when fried in hot fat.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and gives the coating a rich, golden browning.
Beaten egg
Binds the optional breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the fish and fries crisp.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the flour coating absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisp. Enough hot fat seals the coating quickly, so the fish cooks through without soaking up oil.

“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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