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To Fry Whitings

Fried whitings coated in breadcrumbs and flour, served with melted butter or shrimp sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Fry Whitings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean, skin, and dry the whitings thoroughly with a cloth.

  2. Fasten their tails to their mouths.

Coat

  1. Brush the whitings with slightly beaten eggs.

  2. Cover them with a mixture of bread crumbs and a little flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in plenty of boiling lard until golden brown.

  2. Drain and dry them well.

  3. Serve on a hot napkin with melted butter or shrimp sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Whitings
The main fish; its mild, delicate flesh cooks through quickly inside the crisp coating.
Eggs
Slightly beaten eggs act as a glue that helps the crumb coating stick to the fish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer layer when fried in hot fat.
Flour
Dries the surface and helps the egg and crumbs adhere evenly for browning.
Lard
Deep frying fat that conducts heat quickly, browning and crisping the coating.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat to the finished fish as a serving sauce.

The step that matters

Drain and dry them well. Fried coatings turn soggy when moisture from the fish or fat remains on the surface. Draining and drying after frying keeps the crust 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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