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Sardine Fritters

Bread slices fried and topped with sardines, herbs, and a sauce, served with poached eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 ↓

Sardine Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread and eggs

  1. Cut the bread into equal-sized shapes, about ½ inch thick.

  2. Beat the eggs and mix the beaten eggs with the milk.

  3. Soak the bread slices in the egg mixture.

  4. Fry the soaked bread slices in butter until pale brown.

  5. Arrange the fried bread slices in a ring around the edge of a small dish.

  6. Poach the eggs.

  7. Place the poached eggs in the center of the dish.

Make the herb and caper sauce

  1. In a pan, melt butter.

  2. Add the minced herbs to the melted butter and stir for a few minutes.

  3. Add salt, pepper, minced egg yolks, gravy, lemon juice or vinegar, capers, oil, mustard, and breadcrumbs if needed.

  4. Stir the sauce well.

  5. Top each poached egg with a small amount of the sauce.

  6. Spread the rest of the sauce on the bread slices.

Add the sardines and serve

  1. Mix the minced sardines with butter and cayenne pepper.

  2. Spread the sardine mixture on the bread.

  3. Warm the dish in the oven for a minute.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs bind the milk-soaked bread and set it into a firm, golden coating when fried.
Bread
Soaked and fried slices form the crisp, browned base that holds the toppings.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Minced yolks thicken the sauce and add a rich, creamy body.
Sardines
Minced fish provides the savory, oily flavor of the topping.
Capers
Brined buds add a sharp, salty acidity that cuts the richness of the sauce.
Butter
Melted butter carries the herbs and flavors and adds richness to the sauce and sardine mixture.

The step that matters

Warm the dish in the oven for a minute. Egg yolk-based sauces and poached eggs can overcook or curdle with too much heat, so only a brief warming keeps the eggs soft and the sauce smooth.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, milk, butter, parsley, pepper, lemon. 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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