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Marinaded Fowl

A dish of fowl fillets marinated in vinegar, pepper, salt, and oil, then battered and fried, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Marinaded Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the fowl into fillets, each about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide.

  2. Combine vinegar, pepper, salt, and oil in a basin.

  3. Add the fowl pieces and let them soak for 2 hours.

  4. Drain and dry the fowl pieces with a clean cloth.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each piece into frying batter.

  2. Fry the battered pieces in hot fat at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

  3. Fry a little dried parsley.

  4. Use the fried parsley to garnish the dish.

  5. Serve with tomato sauce on the side.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade that softens the fowl's surface and adds tang.
Oil
Carries the seasonings into the marinade and adds moisture and fat.
Frying batter
Forms a crisp, golden coating that seals in moisture during frying.
Fowl
Main protein, which the marinade flavors and the batter coats.

The step that matters

Drying the fowl before battering. Surface moisture keeps the batter from adhering and steams it instead of letting it crisp. Patting the pieces fully dry before dipping helps the coating brown and crisp in the hot fat.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, parsley, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, parsley, sauce. 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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