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Modern Cookery

Breaded fish fillets fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,668 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the bones from the fish and cut into fillets.

Bread and fry

  1. Dip the fillets in beaten eggs, then coat with fine bread crumbs.

  2. Heat lard in a pan and fry the fillets until golden brown.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

Eggs
Bind the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating stays on during frying.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that protects the delicate fish while it cooks.
Fish fillets
Provide the main body of the dish, cooking through gently in the hot fat.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and helps the coating brown evenly.

The step that matters

Frying the fillets until golden brown. Fish is delicate and cooks quickly, so the fat must be hot enough to brown the coating fast. Otherwise the crumbs absorb grease and the fish can overcook or fall apart before the coating crisps.

“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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