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Fried Perch

Fried perch dusted with flour and bread crumbs, then fried in fat and served with parsley and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fried Perch

Why it works: Flour and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,675 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Perch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and scale the perch, then wipe them dry.

  2. Lightly dust the fish with flour and rub off the excess.

  3. Dip the fish into the beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the fish in plenty of boiling fat until nicely browned.

  2. Drain on an inverted sieve for a few minutes.

  3. Serve on a hot dish garnished with parsley.

  4. Serve shrimp sauce, anchovy sauce, or melted butter in a tureen.

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.

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.

  1. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + shrimptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

Perch
The main fish, which cooks through in the hot fat while its coating crisps.
Flour
A thin dry layer that helps the egg wash cling to the fish.
Egg
A binding wash that holds the bread crumbs to the fish surface.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned crust when fried.

The step that matters

Frying in plenty of hot fat. Enough boiling fat keeps its temperature high when the cold fish goes in, so the coating crisps and browns quickly instead of soaking up grease. Crowding or cool fat leads to greasy, pale results.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, bread, shrimp):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, bread, shrimp. 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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