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Fried Whiting

Fried Whiting is a lightly floured fish coated in egg and breadcrumbs, fried until golden and served with lemon and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fried Whiting

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean, wash, and skin the whiting, then put the tail through the mouth.

  2. Dust the fish lightly with well-seasoned flour.

  3. Brush the fish with egg and toss in breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a pan until smoking.

  2. Fry the fish until golden brown.

  3. Drain the fish.

  4. Serve on a hot dish.

  5. Garnish with lemon and fried 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Whiting + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  5. Whiting + lemontop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Whiting
The main protein, which becomes flaky and moist inside while the coating crisps outside.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumbs stick to the fish during frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot oil.

The step that matters

Heating the oil until smoking before frying. Oil that is hot enough sears the breaded coating quickly, so it crisps and browns before the fish absorbs grease and turns soggy.

“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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