Why it works: Flour and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,675 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Fried Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Prepare a sheet of paper with flour.
Coat the fish in flour by rolling it in the paper.
Dip each piece of fish into the beaten egg.
Fry
Heat enough clarified fat or lard in a stewpan to cover the fish.
Once the fat is boiling and silent with a slight blue smoke, drop in the fish.
Adjust the pan to prevent the fish from browning too quickly, ensuring it boils continuously for about 10 minutes.
Remove the fish when browned and cooked, and drain on a sieve.
Serve
Keep the fish hot on a plate-rack or in front of the fire.
Serve piled high on a dish and garnish with fried parsley.
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.
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Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,341 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,765 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,782 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Fish
- Provides the main body of the dish, cooking through as it fries.
- Flour
- Forms a dry coating that helps the egg cling and promotes browning in the fat.
- Beaten egg
- Binds the flour coating to the fish so it adheres during frying.
- Clarified fat or lard
- Conducts heat to cook the fish and gives the coating a crisp, golden surface.
The step that matters
Adjust the pan to control browning while frying. If the fat is too hot, the coating browns or burns before the fish cooks through in the centre. Keeping the fat at a steady boil with gentle heat control lets the fish cook evenly while the crust turns golden.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, fish, egg):
- Capersfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Turmericfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, fish, egg. 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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