Name: To Fry or Broil Fish Properly
Ingredients: 1 whole fish, cleaned; wheat flour, for coating; sweet lard, for frying; 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt') per pound of lard

Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Fry or Broil Fish Properly

Ingredients

1 whole fish, cleaned
wheat flour, for coating
sweet lard, for frying
1 tablespoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt') per pound of lard

Directions

Prepare

Dry the cleaned fish on a folded towel until all water is removed.
Roll the fish in wheat flour or your preferred coating.

Fry

Heat a thick-bottomed frying pan over medium heat and add enough sweet lard to cover the bottom.
Once the lard is boiling, carefully place the fish in the pan.
Fry gently until one side is a fine golden brown, then turn to cook the other side.
Once both sides are cooked, remove the fish and serve immediately, or cover with a tin lid to keep warm.

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.

Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Fish + wheattop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together37 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Fish + flourtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,532 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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; cooking it gently cooks it through while the coating crisps.
Wheat flour: Forms a coating that browns in the hot fat and gives the fish a crisp outer layer.
Sweet lard: Serves as the frying fat, conducting heat evenly and browning the coating.

The step that matters

Drying the fish before coating. Any surface water turns to steam in the hot lard, which can lift the flour coating off and cause spattering. Thorough drying helps the coating stick and brown evenly.

“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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To Fry or Broil Fish Properly