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Fish-cutlets

Fish cutlets made with butter, herbs, shallot, anchovy essence, bread crumbs, and white fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish-cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the herb butter

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan and add chopped herbs and shallot, seasoning with pepper and salt.

  2. Once the butter is melted, mix in the essence of anchovies.

Coat and cook

  1. Cut the fish into cutlets and spread the herb mixture thickly on each piece.

  2. Dredge the fish with bread crumbs.

  3. Cook the cutlets on buttered pans in the oven or before the fire until golden brown.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Shallot + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the herbs and shallot and helps the crumb coating brown and taste rich.
White fish
Forms the main body of the cutlets, cooking to a moist, flaky texture under the coating.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp golden crust that browns during cooking and protects the fish.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a savory, salty depth to the herb butter.

The step that matters

Cook the cutlets until golden brown. Fish cooks quickly and can dry out, so the cutlets should be watched closely. Browning the crumb coating through heat and butter gives the crust its color and flavor while the fish stays moist inside.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, fish, bread. 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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