Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,118 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare
Cut each slice of fish into strips, about 2 inches wide.
Dry the fish strips with a clean cloth and rub lightly with salt and pepper.
Dip each strip in the beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.
Fry and serve
Heat enough fat in a pan to cover the fish strips.
Fry the coated fish strips until golden brown.
Drain excess fat and place on hot white paper in a heated dish.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together34,118 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,145 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Fish + breadtop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,661 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Fish + buttertop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together4,432 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + eggtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together22,584 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish (cod or salmon)
- Forms the main body of the cutlets, cooking into flaky, moist pieces.
- Egg
- Binds the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating stays on during frying.
- Bread crumbs
- Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
The step that matters
Frying the coated strips. The fat must be hot enough to cover the strips so the coating crisps and browns quickly. Fat that is too cool soaks into the crumbs and makes the coating greasy and the fish soggy.
“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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