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Fried Fish

Fried fish coated in flour, cornmeal, egg, and breadcrumbs, then fried until golden, served hot with beurre noir and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Fried Fish

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean, wash, and dry the fish.

  2. Rub the fish with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Coat

  1. Roll the fish in a mixture of flour and cornmeal.

  2. Dip the fish in a beaten egg mixed with water.

  3. Roll the fish in dry bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the fish in very hot fat until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot with Beurre Noir poured over it and garnish with parsley.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through as the coating sets around it.
Flour
Dry base layer that helps the egg wash adhere to the fish.
Cornmeal
Adds a gritty, crisp texture to the outer coating when fried.
Egg
Binds the flour and cornmeal to the fish, so the bread crumbs stick.
Dry bread crumbs
Outer layer that browns and becomes crisp in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Fry the fish in very hot fat until golden brown.. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil before it sets, leaving the fish greasy and soggy. Very hot fat seals the crust quickly and browns it.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, flour, egg, 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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