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Fried Fish

Fried fish pieces coated in egg and flour or cornmeal, pan‑fried with lard and butter, optionally with bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Fried Fish

Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pat the cleaned fish dry with a cloth.

  2. Cut the fish into pieces.

  3. Dip each piece in the beaten eggs, then roll in flour or cornmeal.

Fry and steam

  1. Heat lard and butter in a pan over medium-high heat.

  2. Fry the fish pieces until browned quickly.

  3. Add a few slices of breakfast bacon for flavor, if desired.

  4. Cover the pan and reduce heat to steam and cook the fish through.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Bind the flour or cornmeal coating to the fish so it adheres during frying.
Flour or cornmeal
Forms a crisp, browned crust when fried in hot fat.
Lard and butter
Conduct heat for frying and add richness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Frying the fish until browned quickly. The pan must be hot enough to brown the coating fast. Crowding or low heat lets the crust absorb fat and turn greasy, and the fish steams instead of crisping.

“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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