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Fish Fritters

A fried fish mixture with butter, breadcrumbs, spices, and cheese, served with fried parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Fish Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Remove the skin and bones from the fish and place the picked pieces in a bowl.

  2. Add butter, breadcrumbs, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and lemon rind to the fish.

  3. Moisten the mixture with a beaten egg and mix well.

  4. Shape the mixture into neat pieces.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each piece in egg, then roll in breadcrumbs and grated cheese.

  2. Heat oil in a deep pan and fry the fritters until golden brown.

  3. Remove from oil, drain, and serve garnished with 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White cold fish
Forms the main body of the fritters, giving them their flaky texture and flavour.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the fritters hold their shape when fried.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the mixture body, and form a crisp golden coating.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the fish mixture, softening its texture.

The step that matters

Frying the fritters until golden brown. Oil must be hot enough to crisp the coating quickly; if it is too cool, the breadcrumbs soak up oil and the fritters turn greasy and may fall apart.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, pepper, lemon, egg, cheese, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, pepper, lemon, egg, cheese, parsley. 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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