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Fillets of Whitings

Fried whiting fillets coated in bread crumbs and flour, served with butter or veal gravy, cayenne, lemon, and parsley.

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. Empty and wash the fish thoroughly, but do not skin it.

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

  3. Divide each side into two.

  4. Trim the fillets into good shape.

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

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the fillets in the beaten egg.

  2. Coat the fillets with a mixture of bread crumbs and flour.

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

  4. Drain the fillets on white blotting paper.

Serve

  1. Arrange the fillets in a circle on a plate.

  2. 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 forms the fillets.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumb coating sticks to the fillets.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried.
Flour
Helps the coating adhere and dry out for an even crust.
Lard or clarified butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning.

The step that matters

Fold the fillets in a cloth to absorb moisture. Surface moisture keeps the coating from adhering and steams it instead of frying it, so the fillets turn soggy rather than crisp and golden.

“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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