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Frying Fish

A small fish fried in lard and served with a sauce of claret, white wine, anchovy, spices, butter, lemon, and shallot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and anchovy match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 110 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Frying Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the fish

  1. Clean and dry the fish thoroughly, then sprinkle with flour.

  2. Heat enough hot lard in a frying pan to cover the fish.

  3. Fry the fish until golden brown, then remove and drain excess fat.

Make the claret sauce

  1. In the same pan, add claret and white wine to nearly cover the fish, along with an anchovy, salt, nutmeg, and ginger.

  2. Return the fish to the pan and simmer until the liquid is reduced by half.

  3. Add butter rolled in flour and minced lemon, and simmer until thickened.

Serve

  1. Rub a hot dish with shallot.

  2. Place the fish in the dish.

  3. Pour the sauce over the fish.

  4. Serve.

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. Turbot + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together110 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Coats the fish so it browns and crisps, and thickens the sauce when rolled into butter.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, kneaded with flour, helps it thicken smoothly.
Claret
Forms the wine base of the sauce, adding acidity and flavour as it reduces.
Lemon
Adds acidity and brightness that balances the rich wine and butter sauce.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth to the sauce, blending into it as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmer the fish in the wine until the liquid is reduced by half. Reducing the liquid concentrates the flavour of the claret and aromatics, while the fish must be kept gently simmering so it stays moist and does not break apart.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, turbot, flour, white wine, anchovy, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, turbot, flour, white wine, anchovy, nutmeg, butter. 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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