Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Fried Plaice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Heat the clarified dripping in a saucepan over medium heat.
Wash the plaice in cold water and dry it with a cloth.
Place the plaice on a cutting board and carefully cut off the head and tail.
Grate some bread crumbs onto a piece of paper.
Cut the fish into slices or fillets.
Coat the fish
Break the egg onto a plate and beat it lightly.
Dip the fish slices into the egg, coating them well.
Roll the egg-coated fish in the bread crumbs, ensuring they are well covered. Shake off any excess crumbs.
Fry and serve
Once the dripping is hot and smoking, carefully add the fish, avoiding touching them to keep the coating intact.
Fry the fish in batches, ensuring they do not touch each other.
Place a piece of white or brown paper on a plate. As the fish fries, remove it with a slotted spoon and place it on the paper to drain excess grease.
Serve the fish on a hot dish, garnished with sprigs of parsley.
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.
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 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
- Plaice
- Firm white fish flesh that becomes flaky and tender when fried in slices or fillets.
- Egg
- Acts as a sticky binder that holds the bread crumbs to the fish.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a golden, crisp coating that protects the fish during frying.
- Clarified dripping
- Provides a high-temperature frying fat that browns the coating and carries heat evenly.
The step that matters
Frying in hot, smoking dripping in batches. Hot fat sets the crumb coating quickly so it stays crisp and absorbs less grease. Crowding the pan drops the fat temperature, causing the coating to turn soggy and the fish to steam.
“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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