Name: Fried Whitings
Ingredients: Whitings; Flour; Coarse sea salt; Green parsley

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 Whitings

Ingredients

Whitings
Flour
Coarse sea salt
Green parsley

Directions

Clean and scrape the whitings, then wipe them with a napkin.
Leave the livers inside and make five or six incisions on each side.
Coat the whitings in flour and season with coarse sea salt.
Fry the whitings in a frying pan over high heat until golden brown.
Serve with green parsley around them.

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.

Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Whiting + parsleytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together330 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Whiting + flourtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together303 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).