Why it works: Fish and pork work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 668 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓
Fried Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Clean and wash the fish thoroughly, then dry them between folds of a napkin.
Mix equal parts cornmeal and rye meal on a meat board.
In a large deep plate, beat the eggs and dilute with 2 tablespoons of water for each egg.
Fry and serve
Roll the fish in the meal, dip lightly into the egg, then roll in the meal again.
Fry the fish in hot fat that has been tested by frying sliced salt pork.
Cook until both sides are crisp and golden brown.
Garnish each small fish or half of larger fish with lemon slices and maitre d'hotel butter.
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 + porktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together668 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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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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Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Rye + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together119 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,889 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
- Eggs
- Bind the meal coating to the fish and help it set and brown when fried.
- Cornmeal
- Forms the crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
- Rye meal
- Adds to the crisp coating, giving the crust a firmer, toasted texture.
- Small fish
- The main protein, cooked through by frying while the coating crisps.
The step that matters
Testing the fat temperature. Fish added to fat that is too cool soaks up oil and turns greasy, while fat that is too hot browns the coating before the fish cooks through. The salt pork test helps confirm the fat is hot enough to crisp the coating quickly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, rye, egg, pork, butter):
- Lemonthe original
- Coconutfits about as well
- Applefits about as well
- Pumpkinfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, rye, egg, pork, 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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