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Lafayette-Fish, Mustard Sauce

A fried fish served with mustard sauce and fried parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,588 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Lafayette-Fish, Mustard Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the fins of the Lafayette-fish, cleanse, and wipe dry.

  2. Dip the fish in cold milk, then roll in flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the fish crisp in plenty of very hot fat.

  2. Drain the fish, sprinkle with coarse sea salt, and arrange on a napkin.

  3. Top with fried parsley and serve with mustard sauce in a sauce-bowl.

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. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lafayette-fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked until crisp outside.
Cold milk
Helps the flour coating adhere evenly to the fish before frying.
Flour
Forms a thin coating that crisps and browns in the hot fat.
Fat
Cooks the coating quickly, producing a crisp, golden surface.

The step that matters

Frying the fish crisp in very hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs more oil and turns greasy instead of crisp. Using plenty of fat keeps its temperature steady when the fish goes in, so the coating sets quickly and browns evenly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, flour, mustard, sauce. 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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