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Fish Cutlets

A batter of milk, flour, and fish formed into cutlets, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Fish Cutlets

Why it works: Parsley and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the panada

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, rub together the Cottolene and flour.

  3. Stir the Cottolene and flour mixture into the boiling milk and cook until a thick paste forms.

  4. Add the egg yolk, parsley, onion juice, and mix well.

Shape the cutlets

  1. Incorporate the cold boiled fish and season with salt and cayenne.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool, then form it into cutlets or croquettes.

  3. Dip each cutlet in beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in very hot Cottolene until golden brown.

  2. Drain on brown paper and serve hot with cream sauce.

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. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + fishtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the milk and Cottolene into a paste that holds the fish together.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture and adds richness so the cutlets hold their shape.
Cold boiled fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the cutlets.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the thick paste that binds the fish.
Cottolene
Adds fat for flavour and helps the coating crisp and brown when fried.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to cool before shaping. A warm, soft paste is too loose to hold its shape and may split or slump during frying. Cooling lets the starch set so the cutlets keep their form in the hot fat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, egg, parsley, nutmeg, fish):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, parsley, nutmeg, fish. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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