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Fillets of Whitings

Fillets of whiting coated in egg and breadcrumbs, fried and served with butter or veal gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fillets of Whitings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and wash the whiting fish thoroughly, but do not skin them.

  2. Remove the flesh from both sides close to the bones, from tail to head.

  3. Divide each side into two and trim the fillets into good shape.

  4. Fold the fillets in a cloth to absorb moisture.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the fillets in beaten egg, then coat with a mixture of fine bread crumbs and a small amount of flour.

  2. Fry the fillets in lard or clarified butter until golden brown, about 5 minutes.

  3. Drain the fillets on white blotting paper and arrange them in a circle on a plate.

Serve

  1. Serve with melted butter or thickened veal gravy seasoned with cayenne, lemon juice, and chopped parsley.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the delicate white flesh that is the main component of the dish.
Beaten egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the fillets during frying.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried.
Flour
Helps the egg and crumb coating stick evenly to the fish.
Lard or clarified butter
Fat for frying that conducts heat and promotes browning of the coating.
Melted butter or thickened veal gravy
Adds richness and moisture to the fried fillets as a sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the coated fillets. The coating must be dry and well set before frying, and the fat must be hot enough to brown the crumbs quickly. Otherwise the crust can absorb fat, turn greasy, or fall away from the fish.

“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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