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Fried Perch

Fried perch seasoned with pepper, salt, parsley, herbs, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then broiled and served with butter lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Fried Perch

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fried Perch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale, clean, and wash the perch.

  2. Dry them thoroughly and flour them.

  3. Sprinkle the perch with pepper, coarse sea salt, finely-minced parsley, and sweet herbs.

  4. Drizzle with olive oil and let steep for several hours.

Coat and cook

  1. Dip the fish in beaten egg, then coat with stale breadcrumbs and minced sweet herbs.

  2. Place the fish on a greased gridiron and broil over a clear fire, turning to cook both sides evenly.

  3. Once browned, serve on a hot dish garnished with fried parsley and a sauce of melted butter mixed with lemon juice, seasoned with salt and pepper.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  5. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Perch
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through to flaky, tender flesh over the fire.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumb coating sticks to the fish.
Stale breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust when broiled.
Olive oil
Carries herb flavour into the fish and helps the surface brown.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the serving sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and cuts its richness.

The step that matters

Turning the fish on the gridiron. The coating browns quickly over a hot fire, so turning gently and evenly keeps the breadcrumb crust from burning before the fish is cooked through.

“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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