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Frying Fish

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Frying Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Clean and dry the fish thoroughly.

  2. Coat the fish in flour.

  3. Heat enough hot lard in a pan to cover the fish.

  4. Fry the fish until golden brown, then drain the fat.

  5. In the same pan, add claret and white wine to nearly cover the fish, along with an anchovy, salt, nutmeg, and ginger.

  6. Return the fish to the pan and simmer until the liquid is reduced by half.

  7. Add butter rolled in flour and minced lemon, and simmer until thickened.

  8. Rub a hot dish with shallot, place the fish in the dish, pour the sauce over it, and serve.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, flour, white wine, anchovy, nutmeg, butter, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, white wine, anchovy, nutmeg, butter, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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