Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Fried Cod Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Gut the fresh cod and slice it into 1-inch thick pieces.
Dry the fish with a towel.
Season the fish with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Dip each slice first in the beaten egg, then in the bread crumbs.
Fry and serve
Heat boiling lard in a pan.
Fry the coated fish slices until they are a nice brown.
Drain excess fat from each slice and serve hot.
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.
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together50,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cod
- Provides the flaky white fish that cooks through inside the crisp coating.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, browned coating that protects the fish during frying.
- Egg yolk
- Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs stick to the fish slices.
- Lard
- Conducts heat for frying and encourages browning of the coating.
The step that matters
Drying the fish before coating. Moisture on the fish surface turns to steam in the hot fat and can push the breading off, so patting the slices dry helps the coating adhere and crisp.
“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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