Skip to main content
Main

Fried Fish

Fish slices coated in turmeric‑chili paste, breaded, and fried until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Fried Fish

Why it works: Fish and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,668 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Fried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the marinade

  1. Grind the turmeric, chillies, and some water to make a paste.

  2. Add salt and mix well.

Marinate the fish

  1. Wash the fish slices thoroughly and rub them with the paste.

  2. Allow the fish to steep for about 1 hour.

Fry

  1. Dredge each piece of fish in bread crumbs or coarse flour.

  2. Fry the fish in ghee (or mustard oil) until light brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Turmeric + gheetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together730 recipes
  3. Fish + gheetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together83 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Turmeric + breadtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Turmeric + fishtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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 to a firm, flaky texture when fried.
Turmeric
Adds yellow colour and a mild earthy aroma to the fish.
Red dry chillies
Add heat and a deeper red colour to the paste.
Bread crumbs or coarse flour
Form a dry coating that browns in the hot fat and gives a crisp crust.
Ghee
Fat for frying that conducts heat evenly and adds a rich flavour and golden browning.

The step that matters

Fry the fish in ghee until light brown. Fat must be hot enough to crisp the coating quickly. If the oil is too cool, the coating absorbs grease and the fish steams and turns soggy instead of browning.

Swap the turmeric

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

  1. Turmericthe original
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, ghee, bread. 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.

More fried fish recipes

Breaded 6Battered 3Cakes 3Fillets 3in Batter 3Roe 3 See all 169 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipes