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Fish Cutlets

A fried fish patty made with flaked fish, eggs, parsley, anchovy essence, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Fish Cutlets

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Fish Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the skin and bones from the fish and flake it.

  2. Weigh the fish after removing the skin and bones.

Make the binder

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the flaked fish, eggs, parsley, and anchovy essence.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and cayenne to taste.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into cutlets and coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Heat frying fat in a pan and fry the cutlets until golden brown on both sides.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the cutlets.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that starts the thickened base.
Milk
Cooks with the roux into a thick sauce that holds the mixture together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the cutlets hold their shape when fried.
White bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns in the frying fat.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk, stirring until thickened. Adding the milk slowly while stirring lets the starch in the roux swell evenly. Adding it all at once can leave lumps, and a lumpy or uneven base makes the mixture hard to shape into cutlets.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, flour, milk, egg, bread, anchovy):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, flour, milk, egg, bread, anchovy. 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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