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Soles or Other Fish, to Fry

A fish fillet coated in flour, beaten egg, and breadcrumbs, then fried until golden.

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 the fish

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

  2. Prepare breadcrumbs by rubbing stale bread through a colander or hair sieve.

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

  4. Dip the fish in the beaten egg on both sides or use a paste brush to apply it evenly.

  5. Cover the fish with breadcrumbs, ensuring every part is coated, then shake off loose 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 avoid overcooking.

  3. Serve the fish in the same form as before cutting, 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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by gentle frying in hot fat.
Egg
Acts as a binder, helping the breadcrumb coating stick to the fish.
Stale bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when fried, protecting the fish from drying out.
Flour
Absorbs surface moisture so the egg and crumbs adhere better.

The step that matters

Frying the thick part first. Thick and thin sections cook at different rates. Starting the thick part first lets it reach doneness as the thin part finishes, so the thin section does not dry out or overcook.

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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