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Frying Fish

Fried fish is prepared by dredging slices in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, then frying until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Frying Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the fish into slices about 1 inch thick.

  2. Dredge the fish in flour or coat with egg and bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Heat the fat in a pan until very hot.

  2. Fry the fish for about 15 minutes, turning to cook both sides until golden.

  3. Drain the fried fish on a cloth before serving.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with fried parsley and serve with parsley and butter or melted butter with lemon juice.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender, flaky interior.
Flour
Dries the fish surface so it browns and crisps when fried.
Egg
Acts as a binder that helps bread crumbs stick to the fish.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden coating that adds crunch when fried.
Sweet dripping or lard
Conducts heat for frying and promotes even browning of the coating.

The step that matters

Heating the fat until very hot. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisp. Very hot fat seals the surface quickly, so the fish browns well and stays less oily.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, flour, egg, bread, pepper. 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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