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To Fry Whiting

A fried fish dish made from whiting coated in flour, egg yolk, and bread crumbs, cooked in lard or dripping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,668 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

To Fry Whiting

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape off the scales and cut off the fins of the whiting.

  2. Wipe the fish dry with a clean cloth.

Coat and fry

  1. Dredge the fish with flour or rub with beaten egg yolk using a feather.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with finely grated bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in boiling fresh lard or dripping until golden brown.

  4. If small and used as a garnish, curl the fish before frying.

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. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Whiting + fishtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Whiting + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Whiting fish
The main protein, which cooks through in the hot fat while its coating crisps.
Flour
Forms a dry base layer that helps the egg and crumbs stick and promotes browning.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the fish.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Lard or dripping
Frying fat that conducts heat evenly and browns the coating.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling fresh lard or dripping until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs oil, becomes greasy and can fall off, while the fish may cook unevenly.

“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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