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Fish Cutlets

Fish cutlets made from minced red snapper mixed with white sauce, coated in eggs and cracker crumbs, then fried and served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Fish Cutlets

Why it works: Snapper and sauce share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cook the fish in salted water until tender, then drain and remove all bones.

  2. Mince the fish finely, then mix in the white sauce and season to taste.

  3. Mould the mixture into cutlets.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each cutlet in beaten eggs, then coat with cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlets in hot oil until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with tomato sauce.

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.

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.

  1. Snapper + saucetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Snapper + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 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

Red snapper
Provides the main body and flaky texture of the cutlets.
White sauce
Binds the minced fish and keeps the cutlets moist.
Beaten eggs
Help the cracker crumbs adhere and form a crisp coating when fried.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned outer crust during frying.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy and soft before it browns. Hot oil sets the crumb crust quickly and gives even golden browning.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (snapper, sauce, egg, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Welsh onionfits better
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against snapper, sauce, egg, tomato. 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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