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Fried Perch

Fried perch coated in flour and fried with salt, oil, parsley, onion, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fried Perch

Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Fried Perch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scale and prepare the perch.

  2. Remove the ears and wash the fish.

  3. Make shallow cuts across both sides of the perch.

  4. Marinate the perch in salt, oil, parsley, onion slices, and lemon juice for some time.

Fry and serve

  1. Drain the perch, coat it in flour, and fry until firm and golden brown.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Perch
The main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks through.
Flour
Forms a coating that browns in the hot oil and crisps the outside of the fish.
Lemon juice
Acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish during marinating.
Oil
Carries heat into the fish during frying and helps the coating brown evenly.

The step that matters

Frying until golden brown. The fish must be dry before coating and the oil hot enough, otherwise the flour coating absorbs oil and turns soggy instead of crisp. Frying until firm ensures the flesh is fully cooked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, lemon, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Kalefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, lemon, flour. 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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