Skip to main content
Main

Pan Fish

Pan Fish is a dish of a large fish fried with smaller fish and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Fish and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,889 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pan Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the first side

  1. Place the large fish in a thick-bottom frying pan, heads facing the same direction.

  2. Fill the spaces between the large fish with smaller fish.

  3. Fry the fish until they are brown and ready to turn.

Turn and fry the other side

  1. Cover the fish with a dinner plate.

  2. Drain off the fat.

  3. Invert the pan to leave the fish on the plate.

  4. Return the lard to the pan.

  5. Heat the lard.

  6. Carefully place the fish back in the pan.

  7. Fry the other side until brown.

  8. Drain the fish.

Serve

  1. Turn the fish onto a plate.

  2. Transfer the fish to a warm platter.

  3. Garnish with lemon slices.

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. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Large fish
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks to a browned, crisp surface.
Smaller fish
Fills the gaps between the large fish so the pan is used fully and everything browns evenly.
Lard
Conducts heat to the fish and gives the surface a rich, browned finish.

The step that matters

Turning the fish. Fish is delicate and can break or stick when flipped. Letting it brown fully first lets the surface release from the pan, and the plate-and-invert move keeps the fish intact while the hot fat is returned to the pan for the second side.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipes