Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Fish Eat Matelote

A fish coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, then fried in lard until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Stewed Fish Eat Matelote

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dust the fish with flour.

  2. Dip the floured fish in the beaten egg.

  3. Coat the fish in bread crumbs, cracker dust, or corn meal.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a pan until fiercely hot.

  2. Carefully lay the fish in the hot lard.

  3. Fry for 3 to 4 minutes, then turn the fish over with a cake turner.

  4. Remove the fish when the flesh easily separates from the bone.

Serve

  1. Transfer the fish to a piece of clean brown paper.

  2. Serve the fish on a folded napkin.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 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

Fish
Provides the main body of the dish, cooking to flaky flesh that separates from the bone.
Flour
Dries the fish surface so the egg coating sticks evenly.
Egg
Acts as a glue that binds the breadcrumb coating to the fish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when fried in hot fat.
Lard
Conducts heat to brown and crisp the coating while adding richness.

The step that matters

Heat the lard until fiercely hot before adding the fish. Hot fat sears the coating quickly, forming a crisp crust that seals in moisture. If the lard is too cool, the coating soaks up grease and the fish becomes heavy and greasy.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes