Why it works: Fish and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,948 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Fried Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Cut the fish into serving-sized pieces.
Soak the fish in cold salt water for 1 hour, then drain thoroughly.
Season the fish with pepper and salt, and let it stand for several hours.
Coat and fry
Heat a generous amount of fresh lard in a skillet until very hot.
Dip each piece of fish in cornmeal, ensuring even coverage.
Fry the fish in the hot lard, adjusting the heat as necessary.
Brown one side, then turn to brown the other side.
Do not cover the skillet to keep the crust dry and crisp.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,948 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through to a tender, flaky interior.
- Cornmeal
- Forms a coating that crisps and browns in the hot fat, giving the dish its crunchy crust.
- Fresh lard
- Serves as the frying fat, conducting heat evenly and helping the coating brown and crisp.
The step that matters
Frying in very hot lard. If the fat is not hot enough, the cornmeal coating soaks up grease instead of crisping quickly, leaving a soggy, heavy crust. Keeping the pan uncovered lets steam escape so the crust stays dry and crisp.
“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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