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Dressing Fish

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Dressing Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dry the fish well with a clean cloth.

  2. Heat enough beef dripping or hog's lard in a stew pan to almost cover the fish.

  3. Ensure the fat is boiling before adding the fish.

  4. Fry the fish quickly until it is a light brown color, turning if necessary.

  5. Once cooked, place the fish on a coarse cloth to drain excess fat.

  6. For fried parsley, cook quickly and remove as soon as it is crisp to retain color.

  7. For batter, beat an egg and dip the fish in it before frying.

  8. Mix a little ale and flour for the batter just before using.

  9. When boiling fish, add plenty of coarse sea salt and horse-radish, except for mackerel, which should have salt, mint, parsley, and fennel.

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. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Radish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together120 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Mint + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

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

  4. Beef + horsetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + radishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, beef, egg, flour, horse, radish, parsley):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, beef, egg, flour, horse, radish, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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