Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Fried Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the fish into 1‑inch thick steaks, wash thoroughly, and dry.
In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the water and salt.
Coat and fry
Dip each piece of fish into the batter, then coat with Indian meal or cracker dust.
Heat drippings, butter, or lard in a pan until boiling.
Fry the fish for 8 to 10 minutes, turning after the first 3 minutes.
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.
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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,782 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
- Fish
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through to flakiness in hot fat.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter so the coating adheres to the fish and sets during frying.
- Indian meal or cracker dust
- Forms a crisp outer crust that browns when fried in hot fat.
- Drippings, butter, or lard
- Conducts heat to the fish and adds flavour and browning to the crust.
The step that matters
Fry the fish for 8 to 10 minutes, turning after the first 3 minutes. The fat must be hot enough to set and brown the coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy, and the fish steams instead of crisping.
“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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