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Fillets of Whitings Grilles with Sharp Sauce

Whiting fillets are coated in egg and breadcrumbs, grilled, and served with a sharp sauce of consommé, lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fillets of Whitings Grilles with Sharp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillets

  1. Toss the whiting fillets in the egg.

  2. Coat the fillets in bread crumbs and place them on paper.

  3. Clarify some butter and dip the fillets in the crumbs again.

Grill

  1. Place the fillets on a grill over a clear wood ash fire.

  2. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

Serve

  1. Arrange the fillets neatly on a dish.

  2. In the center, pour strong consommé mixed with lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 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

Whiting fillets
The main protein, which cooks through quickly and becomes flaky when grilled.
Egg
Acts as a binding layer so the bread crumbs adhere to the fillets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns on the grill and protects the delicate fish.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumb coating brown evenly.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown on both sides. Whiting is delicate and thin, so it cooks fast over a hot fire. Turning it once and watching for color prevents the coating from scorching while the fish stays moist inside.

“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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