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To Dress Fish

A method of preparing fish by salting, boiling, flouring, and frying or broiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 562 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Dress Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Examine the fish to ensure it is properly cleaned.

  2. Soak fresh water fish in strong saltwater to remove muddy smell, then dry.

Cook the fish

  1. Boil salted water and add the fish, cooking until done but not breaking apart.

  2. Drain the fish and cut off the fins.

  3. For broiling, flour the fish except for herrings, which should be scored.

  4. For frying, dry the fish with a cloth, flour them, and heat plenty of dripping or hog's lard in a frying pan until boiling.

  5. Fry the fish until golden, then place on a dish or sieve to drain.

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. Parsley + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Horseradish + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together743 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + horseradishtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Is the main ingredient, cooked by boiling, broiling or frying.
Flour
Coats the fish so the surface browns and crisps during broiling or frying.
Dripping or hog's lard
Fat for frying that conducts heat and gives the fish a golden, crisp surface.

The step that matters

Frying the floured fish in hot fat. The fat must be fully heated before the fish goes in. Hot fat sets the flour coating quickly, so it turns golden and crisp rather than soaking up grease and becoming soggy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, horseradish, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, horseradish, flour. 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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