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Fried Fish

Fried fish coated in egg and flour, deep‑fried until brown and served with parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Fried Fish

Why it works: Flour and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,675 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish thoroughly by washing and scraping in three or four waters.

  2. Beat enough eggs to coat the fish pieces.

  3. Saturate the fish pieces with the egg and dip them in flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a pan until boiling hot.

  2. Place the fish, flesh side down, in the hot oil and fry until brown.

  3. Serve on a napkin garnished with parsley.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

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

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  5. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, with its flesh cooking through in the hot oil.
Eggs
Bind the flour to the fish so the coating sticks and fries evenly.
Flour
Forms a coating that becomes crisp and golden when fried.
Oil
Transfers heat quickly to the coating, drying and browning its surface.

The step that matters

Heat the oil until boiling hot before adding the fish. If the oil is not hot enough, the floured coating absorbs oil instead of sealing and browning, leaving the fish greasy and soggy rather than crisp.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, egg, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, flour. 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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