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Whiting , Fried

Fried whiting coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, served with anchovy butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Whiting and anchovy share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 82 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Whiting , Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin, clean, and dry the whiting.

  2. Fasten the tails in the mouths of the fish.

  3. Dust the fish with flour.

  4. Beat the egg and paint it over the fish.

  5. Sprinkle finely grated bread crumbs on top.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the fish in boiling lard for 5 minutes.

  2. Serve on a napkin garnished with parsley, with sauce in a sauce-boat.

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. Whiting + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  3. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Whiting
The main fish, whose firm white flesh cooks through quickly in hot fat.
Egg
Binds the flour and crumbs to the fish so the coating holds during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot lard.
Flour
Dries the fish surface and helps the egg wash cling for an even coating.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling lard. The lard must be fully hot before the fish goes in. Hot fat sets the crumb coating quickly and browns it, while cooler fat soaks in and makes the coating greasy and likely to fall off.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, flour, 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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