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Small Fish

Small fish fried in butter or boiling fat, optionally coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Small Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and dry the small fish.

  2. Shake the fish in a floured cloth.

Fry and finish

  1. Fry the fish in a little butter or boiling fat.

  2. Dip the fish in beaten egg.

  3. Sprinkle the fish with bread crumbs before frying.

  4. Cook until golden brown, about 2 minutes.

  5. Drain on a wire rack to remove excess fat.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Flour
Forms a light coating that helps the fish brown and keeps the crumbs adhering.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating stays in place during frying.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Butter or boiling fat
Conducts heat quickly to cook the fish and encourages browning and crispness.

The step that matters

Fry in hot fat until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the coating quickly. If it is too cool, the fish absorbs more fat and the coating becomes greasy and soft instead of crisp.

“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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