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Fried Fish in Batter

A fish fillet coated in a flour, egg white, and oil batter and fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Fish in Batter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, salt, and pepper.

  2. Gradually add salad oil and tepid water, mixing well.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg white.

Fry and serve

  1. Cut the fish fillets into neat pieces and coat them with the batter.

  2. Heat deep fat until a faint haze rises, then fry the coated fish until golden brown.

  3. Drain thoroughly and serve garnished with fried 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Fish + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, 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

Egg white
Stiffly beaten, it folds air into the batter so the coating puffs and stays light when fried.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter that coats and holds onto the fish.
Salad oil
Adds fat to the batter, giving a tender coating that browns evenly.

The step that matters

Heating the deep fat until a faint haze rises. Fat that is too cool lets the batter soak up oil and turn greasy, while the right heat sets the coating quickly and browns it. Wait for the haze before adding 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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