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Broiled Whitings

Broiled whiting fillets coated in bread crumbs and butter, served hot with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Broiled Whitings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Empty and scale the whitings, preserving the liver, wash and wipe them clean.

  2. Slit the back of the fish on both sides.

Coat the fish

  1. Beat the egg yolk with a little salt and pepper.

  2. Brush the egg mixture over the whitings.

  3. Coat the fish in bread crumbs.

  4. Dip the fish in melted butter.

  5. Coat the fish in bread crumbs again.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the fish until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot with sauce separately.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Whiting + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Whitings
The main fish, which becomes flaky and moist when cooked through under the broiler.
Egg yolk
Binds the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating adheres evenly.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns under the broiler.
Melted butter
Adds fat that helps the crumb coating brown and gives a rich flavour.

The step that matters

Coat the fish in bread crumbs again. A second layer of crumbs over the butter builds a thicker coating. If the butter is not applied first, the crumbs will not stick well and may fall off during broiling.

“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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