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Small Fish

Fried small fish coated in flour, optionally dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, cooked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Small Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and dry the small fish.

  2. Shake the fish in a floured cloth.

Fry

  1. Fry the fish in a little butter or boiling fat.

  2. Dip the fish in egg.

  3. Sprinkle the fish with fine bread crumbs.

  4. Cook until golden brown, about 2 minutes.

  5. Drain on a wire rack until free from fat.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Small fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking quickly to a crisp exterior with tender flesh.
Flour
Dry coating that helps the egg adhere and gives the surface a crisp, golden finish.
Egg
Liquid binder that holds the bread crumbs in place on the fish.
Fine bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden-brown crust during frying.
Butter or boiling fat
Conducts heat to fry the fish and adds richness and browning.

The step that matters

Fry the fish in hot fat. The fat must be boiling hot before the fish goes in. Hot fat sears the coating quickly, sealing in moisture and preventing the crumbs from absorbing grease and turning soggy.

“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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