Why it works: Bread and oyster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,544 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, wheat, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare the cod
Dip the slices of cod in beaten egg.
Coat the cod with bread crumbs.
Fry and serve
Fry the cod in boiling lard until golden brown.
Drain the fried cod on paper towels.
Serve with oyster sauce in the center.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Bread + oystertop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together2,544 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + oystertop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together4,093 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + breadtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together22,584 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Oyster + saucetop 8% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together2,233 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Bread + saucetop 11% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together4,933 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Slices of crimped cod
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked to a flaky, tender interior.
- Egg
- Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the fish.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
- Boiling lard
- Conducts heat quickly to crisp the coating and add rich flavour.
- Oyster sauce
- Adds savoury, salty depth to the finished fish as a serving sauce.
The step that matters
Fry the cod in boiling lard until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the coating quickly; if it is too cool, the crumbs absorb oil and turn greasy while the fish overcooks.
“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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