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Whiting, Fillets of

Whiting fillets are seasoned, battered, fried, and served with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Whiting, Fillets of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillets

  1. Remove the fillets from the whiting and fold each in half.

  2. Season with pepper and salt, then sprinkle with olive oil, French wine, and chopped parsley.

  3. Let them soak for 1 to 2 hours.

Fry and serve

  1. Drain the fillets, dip them in frying batter, and fry in hot clarified fat until golden.

  2. Drain on a cloth or paper and serve on a folded napkin garnished with fried parsley.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, melt butter in a saucepan, stir in flour, and cook without browning.

  2. Gradually add fish stock and white stock, stir until boiling, then let simmer.

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

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

  2. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  4. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Forms the main body of the dish as the fillets that are cooked and served.
Frying batter
Forms a crisp, golden coating that seals in moisture during frying.
Olive oil
Adds moisture and richness to the fillets as they soak with the seasonings.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour through the roux base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by forming a roux with the melted butter.
Fish stock
Provides the main liquid and savoury flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the roux without browning. Flour cooked in butter must be stirred gently and kept pale so it thickens smoothly and gives a clean, neutral flavour; browning changes the taste and colour of the sauce.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, pepper, olive, wine, butter, flour, fish):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, pepper, olive, wine, butter, flour, fish. 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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