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Soles or Other Fish, to Fry

A fried fish dish coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, served with optional parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,649 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Soles or Other Fish, to Fry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the fish thoroughly and wrap it in a clean cloth to dry for 1 hour.

  2. Prepare bread crumbs by rubbing stale bread through a colander or a fine sieve.

  3. Beat the yolk and white of the egg together on a plate with a fork.

Coat the fish

  1. Dust the fish with flour to absorb moisture, then wipe off excess flour.

  2. Dip the fish in the egg mixture on both sides or use a pastry brush to apply it evenly.

  3. Cover the fish with bread crumbs, ensuring every part is coated, then shake off excess crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat 1 quart of fresh olive oil or clarified butter in a frying pan until hot.

  2. Fry the thick part of the fish for a few minutes before adding the thin part to ensure even cooking.

  3. Serve the fish on a platter, garnished with curled parsley if desired.

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. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  2. Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main body of the dish, which the coating surrounds and the frying cooks through.
Egg
Its yolk and white act as a binder so the bread crumbs stick to the fish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
Flour
Dries the fish surface so the egg coating adheres more firmly.

The step that matters

Adding the thin part of the fish to the hot fat. Thin sections cook much faster than thick ones, so frying the thick part first lets both reach doneness together. Adding the thin part too early can leave it overcooked and dry while the thick section is still raw inside.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, egg, flour, olive):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, egg, flour, olive. 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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