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Fried Fish

Fried fish is a dish of fish coated in flour, egg, and crumbs, then deep-fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Fried Fish

Why it works: Fish and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,668 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Fried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and dry the fish.

  2. For smelts, squeeze out entrails carefully without bruising the fish. Do not remove heads.

  3. Wash smelts quickly and dry without scaling.

  4. Season the fish with salt and pepper.

Bread the fish

  1. Dredge the fish in flour.

  2. Dip the fish into the beaten egg.

  3. Roll the fish in fine bread or cracker crumbs. Repeat until fully covered.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat enough fat in a frying basket to cover the fish. Test the fat with a crumb of bread; it should brown in half a minute.

  2. Fry the fish until golden brown.

  3. Drain the fish thoroughly before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Creates a dry base that helps the egg and crumbs adhere to the fish.
Egg
Acts as a binder that holds the crumb coating to the fish.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden coating when fried.

The step that matters

Test the frying fat before adding the fish. Fat that is too cool lets the coating soak up oil and turn greasy, while the crust needs enough heat to brown quickly and seal the fish. Checking with a crumb of bread confirms the fat is hot enough.

“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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