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Fried Shad

Fried shad is a whole fish fried and served with a tomato ketchup gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Shad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale and split the shad down the belly, then wash it in cold water.

  2. Dry the fish with a linen cloth, then season it inside and out with salt and pepper, and dredge it with flour on both sides.

Fry the fish

  1. Heat a frying pan with butter and lard until hot, then lay the fish in whole.

  2. Cover the pan and fry the fish slowly for 40 minutes, turning it after 20 minutes.

  3. Once cooked, lift the fish into a warm chafing dish.

Make the gravy

  1. In the frying pan, add browned flour and hot water to the drippings, and let it boil for 5 minutes, stirring well.

  2. Stir in the tomato ketchup and pour the gravy into a serving dish.

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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Shad
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked whole in fat until flaky and golden.
Flour
Dredging coats the fish so its surface browns and crisps during frying.
Butter
Adds fat and browning flavor to the frying pan for the fish.
Lard
Adds fat with a high smoke point for slow frying and a crisp surface.
Browned flour
Thickens the pan drippings into a gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the gravy, giving it a tangy flavor.

The step that matters

Slow frying with the lid on. Frying slowly over gentle heat cooks the fish through without burning the flour coating. Turning it once at the midpoint lets both sides brown evenly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, butter, ketchup):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter, ketchup. 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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