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Broiled Brook Trout

Broiled brook trout seasoned with salt and pepper, coated in flour, egg, and cracker crumbs, then fried in butter and served with fried parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broiled Brook Trout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and dry the brook trout.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Roll in flour, then dip in beaten egg.

  4. Coat with cracker crumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry in hot butter until brown.

  2. Serve with fried 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.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Brook trout
Is the main protein, cooked through while its coating browns and crisps.
Flour
Dries the fish surface so the egg and crumbs can stick evenly.
Egg
Acts as a binder that holds the cracker crumbs to the fish.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust when fried.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds browning and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Fry in hot butter until brown. Butter's milk solids brown quickly and can scorch at high heat, so the heat must be controlled. The coating needs enough time to set and turn golden before the fish overcooks.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, egg, butter. 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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