Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Fried Whiting
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Place the tails of the whiting in their mouths.
Coat the fish with flour.
Brush the fish with beaten egg.
Cover the fish with bread crumbs.
Fry
Fry the fish in boiling fat until golden brown.
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.
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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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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Whiting + flourtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together303 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Whiting + breadtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together190 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,383 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg and flour 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 and cooks into tender, flaky flesh inside a crisp coating.
- Egg
- Acts as a binder so the flour and bread crumbs stick to the fish.
- Flour
- Dries the fish surface and gives the egg a base to cling to, aiding crisp browning.
- Bread crumbs
- Form the crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
- Frying fat
- Conducts heat quickly to cook the coating and promote browning.
The step that matters
Fry the fish in boiling fat until golden brown. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping quickly. Too hot, and the crumbs burn before the fish cooks through.
“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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