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 ↓
Fried Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Prepare the fish by cleaning, washing, drying, and cutting it into pieces.
Dip the fish into flour, oatmeal, or brush with beaten egg and roll in fine bread crumbs.
Fry and finish
Heat 3 to 4 oz. of lard or dripping in a deep saucepan.
Fry the fish until golden brown, starting with the white side down.
Drain the fried fish on soft paper to absorb excess grease.
Strain the fat when cool for reuse.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,668 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,782 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by frying in hot fat.
- Flour
- Forms a thin coating that helps the batter adhere and brown in the frying fat.
- Oatmeal
- Adds a crisp, slightly textured coating when used in the batter.
- Egg
- Binds the crumbs to the fish so the coating stays on during frying.
- Fine bread crumbs
- Creates a crisp, golden outer crust once fried.
- Lard or dripping
- Conducts heat to cook the fish and browns the coating through frying.
The step that matters
Fry the fish until golden brown, starting with the white side down.. Fat must be hot enough to crisp the coating quickly; if it is too cool, the fish absorbs grease and the coating turns soggy. Starting white side down lets the coating set before the fish is turned.
“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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