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To Dress Fish

A fish coated in beaten eggs, breadcrumbs, and flour, then fried in beef dripping or hog's lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Dress Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Dry the fish well with a clean cloth.

  2. Beat the yolks of 2 or 3 eggs in a bowl.

  3. Use a small pastry brush to apply the egg to the fish.

  4. Sprinkle bread crumbs and flour over the fish.

Fry and drain

  1. Heat enough beef dripping or hog's lard in a clean stewpan to almost cover the fish.

  2. Ensure the fat is boiling before adding the fish.

  3. Fry the fish quickly until it is a light brown color.

  4. Use a fish slice to turn the fish if necessary.

  5. Once cooked, place the fish on a coarse cloth to drain excess grease.

  6. If frying parsley, do it quickly and remove it as soon as it is crisp.

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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour 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

Eggs
Egg yolks bind the bread crumbs and flour to the fish as a coating.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Flour
Helps the coating adhere and dry out to a crisp surface.
Beef dripping or hog's lard
Frying fat that conducts heat and browns the coating while cooking the fish quickly.

The step that matters

Ensure the fat is boiling before adding the fish. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and becomes greasy instead of sealing and crisping. Hot fat sets the crust quickly, so the fish cooks through without soaking up grease.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, flour, beef):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, flour, beef. 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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