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Fried White Fish

A whole white fish is seasoned, coated in flour or breadcrumbs, fried in butter, and served with catsup and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 White Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and dry the fish, then salt it inside and out.

  2. Roll the fish in cracker flour or bread crumbs, then in the beaten egg seasoned with a pinch of salt.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in very hot butter until golden brown on both sides.

  2. If the fish is large, split it lengthwise and cut into pieces about 3 inches wide.

  3. Serve with catsup and slices of lemon.

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.

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. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

White fish
Provides the main protein that is cooked and served whole or in pieces.
Cracker flour or bread crumbs
Forms a dry coating that helps the crust brown and crisp when fried.
Beaten egg
Binds the crumb coating to the fish so it stays on during frying.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds browning and a rich flavor to the crust.

The step that matters

Frying in very hot butter. If the butter is not hot enough, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of browning quickly. Hot fat sets the crust fast, so the fish cooks through while staying crisp outside.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Vanillafits less well

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