Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
To Fry Whitings
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Clean, skin, and dry the whitings thoroughly with a cloth.
Fasten their tails to their mouths.
Coat
Brush the whitings with slightly beaten eggs.
Cover them with a mixture of fine bread crumbs and a little flour.
Fry and serve
Fry in plenty of boiling lard until golden brown.
Drain and dry them well.
Serve on a hot napkin with melted butter or shrimp sauce.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Whitings
- The fish is the main component, cooked through in hot fat to a crisp coating.
- Eggs
- Bind the crumb coating to the fish so it adheres during frying.
- Fine bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
- Flour
- Helps the crumb coating stick and adds to browning.
- Lard
- Fries the fish quickly, producing a crisp, golden-brown surface.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavour when served melted over the fish.
The step that matters
Dry the fish thoroughly before coating. Surface moisture turns to steam in hot fat and can loosen the crumb coating, so it may fall off or splatter. Drying the whitings well helps the coating adhere and fry evenly to a crisp finish.
“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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