Why it works: Fish and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,532 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓
Fried Fish
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Dry the fish thoroughly.
Coat the fish in flour.
Dip the floured fish in batter.
Fry
Quickly plunge the fish into hot fat.
Fry until the batter is bright golden, then remove.
If the fish is thick, place it in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a few minutes.
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 + flourtop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,532 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish
- Provides the main body of the dish, cooking through while the coating crisps around it.
- Flour
- Dry coating that helps the batter adhere evenly to the fish surface.
- Batter
- Forms a crisp golden shell that seals in moisture during frying.
The step that matters
Quickly plunge the fish into hot fat. Hot fat sets the batter on contact and creates a crisp crust before the fish absorbs grease or overcooks. Fat that is too cool produces soggy, oily coating.
“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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