Why it works: Parsley and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,341 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
To Crimp Parsley
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the parsley and remove the large stalks.
Soak the parsley in clean water.
Crisp and drain
Heat the dripping from the fried fish until it boils.
Quickly add the parsley to the boiling dripping to crisp it.
Remove the parsley with a slotted spoon and let it stand before the fire for a minute or two.
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.
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Parsley + fishtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,341 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
- Parsley
- Its thin leaves crisp quickly in hot fat, becoming brittle and light rather than soggy.
- Dripping from fried fish
- Hot fat transfers heat fast to the parsley, drying its surface and crisping it while adding savoury flavour.
The step that matters
Adding the parsley to the boiling dripping. The fat must be at a full boil so the parsley crisps in seconds. If the parsley goes into cooler fat, it soaks up oil and turns limp and greasy instead of crisp.
“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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