Skip to main content
Main

To Fry Brook Trout or Other Small Fish

Fried brook trout served with a wine and onion gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Fry Brook Trout or Other Small Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and wash the fish.

  2. Wrap the fish in a clean, dry towel for a few minutes to dry completely.

  3. Season the fish with salt and pepper.

  4. Roll the fish in cornmeal.

  5. Heat the butter and lard in a pan until boiling.

  6. Fry the fish until golden brown.

  7. Drain the fried fish on a sieve or coarse brown paper.

  8. Cut the fish into steaks about 1 inch thick.

  9. Set the steaks aside.

Make the onion sauce

  1. Boil the onions in a small amount of water until tender.

  2. Drain the onions.

  3. Add pepper, salt, spices, boiling water, and wine to the onions.

  4. Lay the fish slices in the onion mixture.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  6. Mix the flour and butter together and add the flour-butter mixture to the boiling mixture.

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 + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Brook trout
Provides the main protein; its flesh flakes and turns tender when fried and simmered.
Cornmeal
Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat and protects the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and browns the coating during frying.
Lard
Gives a high-heat frying fat that browns the coating evenly and crisply.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, forming the body of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smoother sauce when stirred into the boiling mixture.

The step that matters

Frying the fish until golden brown. Fish dried thoroughly and fried in hot fat develops a crisp coating. Wet fish or a cool pan steams the coating, leaving it soggy and pale.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, butter, wine, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, butter, wine, flour. 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.

You might also like

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipes