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Fried Whiting, Soles, and Cod

A fried fish dish using whiting, soles, and cod coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Whiting, Soles, and Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and clean the whiting.

  2. Truss the fish for frying.

  3. Mix flour with salt and pepper on a plate.

Coat the fish

  1. Dip the fish into the flour, shake off excess, and brush with beaten egg.

  2. Cover the fish with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

  2. Drain and dish up, garnishing with parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Whiting
Forms the main body of the dish, with firm white flesh that cooks to flakes.
Flour
Dry coating that helps the egg and crumbs adhere and encourages even browning.
Beaten egg
Binds the flour to the bread crumbs so the coating stays on during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried in hot fat.

The step that matters

Frying in hot fat. The fat must be hot enough to brown the coating quickly. If it is too cool, the crumbs absorb oil and turn greasy before the fish is cooked through.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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