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Fillets of Perch Fried in a Marinade

Fillets of perch marinated in vinegar, water, carrot, onion, bay leaf, peppercorns, salt, and garlic, then fried and served with a tarragon butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Fillets of Perch Fried in a Marinade

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Marinate the perch fillets in a mixture of vinegar, water, carrot, onion, bay leaf, peppercorns, salt, and garlic for 10 hours.

  2. Remove the fillets from the marinade and shake them in flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the fillets quickly in hot lard until golden brown.

  2. Drain excess fat and place the fillets on a serving dish.

  3. Pour hot strong butter sauce with tarragon vinegar over the fillets before serving.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,930 recipes

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

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Perch fillets
Provide the main protein that cooks through and flakes when fried.
Vinegar
Acidifies the marinade, tenderising the fish and adding a sharp, tangy flavour.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that browns in the hot fat and gives the fillets a crisp surface.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying, browning the flour coating and adding richness.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds a sharp, aromatic note to the butter sauce poured over the cooked fillets.

The step that matters

Frying the fillets quickly in hot lard. Fish is delicate and can turn dry or greasy if fried too long or in fat that is not hot enough. Hot fat quickly sets the flour coating into a crisp, golden crust while the inside stays moist and flaky.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, carrot, onion, garlic, flour, butter, sauce):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, carrot, onion, garlic, flour, butter, sauce. 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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