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Broiled Whitings

A fish dish where whitings are cleaned, seasoned, coated in breadcrumbs and clarified butter, then broiled until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Broiled Whitings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Empty and scale the whitings, preserving the liver.

  2. Wash and wipe the fish clean, then slit the back on both sides.

  3. Beat the egg yolk with salt and pepper, and brush it over the whitings.

Coat and broil

  1. Dip the fish into bread crumbs, then into clarified butter, and back into bread crumbs.

  2. Broil the fish until golden brown and serve with 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Whiting + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together510 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

Egg yolk
Helps the bread crumb coating adhere and gives the fish a richer, more golden surface.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust that protects the delicate fish flesh.
Clarified butter
Conducts heat well and encourages browning while adding rich flavor to the crumb coating.

The step that matters

Coating the whitings in bread crumbs, butter, and bread crumbs. Each layer must be applied evenly so the crumbs stick and brown uniformly under the broiler. Gaps in the coating let the delicate fish dry out or stick to the pan.

“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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