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Soles or Other Fish, to Fry

A simple fried fish recipe using eggs and breadcrumbs, seasoned with sea salt and garnished with parsley.

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.

  2. Wrap the fish in a clean cloth to dry for an hour.

  3. Prepare bread crumbs by rubbing stale bread through a colander or a hair sieve for a finer texture.

  4. Beat the yolk and white of the egg together on a plate.

  5. Flour the fish to absorb moisture.

  6. Wipe off excess flour with a clean cloth.

  7. Dip the fish in the egg on both sides or brush it evenly with the egg.

  8. Cover the fish with bread crumbs, shaking off any loose crumbs.

Fry and serve

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

  2. If the fish are large, cut them into smaller pieces for easier frying.

  3. Fry the thick part of the fish for a few minutes before adding the thin part to avoid overcooking.

  4. Serve the fish garnished with curled parsley.

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

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

  5. Fish + olivetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 through while the coating crisps.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating to the fish so it adheres during frying.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
Olive oil or clarified butter
Conducts heat for frying and browns the crumb coating while adding richness.

The step that matters

Fry the thick part first. Thick sections need more time to cook through than thin ones. Adding the thin part at the same time risks overcooking it, leaving it dry, while the thick center is still underdone.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, egg, bread, olive):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, bread, 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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