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Fish Cutlets

Fish cutlets made from flaked fish mixed with sauce, coated in breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Fish Cutlets

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fish Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Steam the fish until cooked, then flake it.

  2. Season the flaked fish with salt, pepper, lemon juice, and chopped parsley.

  3. In a saucepan, melt the butter, add flour, and gradually stir in the milk to make a thick sauce.

  4. Combine the fish with the sauce and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into cutlets, dip in beaten egg, and coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlets in deep oil 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.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Firm-fleshed fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the cutlets.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a sauce that binds the fish.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds fat for flavour and mouthfeel.
Egg
Coats the cutlets so the breadcrumbs adhere and help them hold their shape.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, loose mixture is soft and sticky, so cutlets can break or slump in the oil. Cooling lets the starch-thickened sauce firm up so the cutlets hold together while frying.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, lemon, flour, butter, milk, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, lemon, flour, butter, milk, egg. 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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