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Fried Bass with Bacon

Fried bass coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, served with bacon, parsley, mashed potatoes, and sliced tomatoes or cucumbers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Bass with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the fish into pieces and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Roll each piece in flour, then dip in beaten egg, and coat with bread crumbs.

Fry and top

  1. Fry the fish in hot deep fat until golden brown.

  2. In a separate pan, cook a slice of bacon for each piece of fish.

  3. Place the bacon on the fried fish and garnish with parsley.

Serve

  1. Serve with mashed potatoes and sliced tomatoes or cucumbers.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Bass
Provides the main protein; the flaky white flesh is cooked through by frying.
Egg
Binds the flour and bread crumbs so the coating adheres to the fish during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried in hot fat.
Bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat flavor that seasons the fish from the top.

The step that matters

Frying the coated fish in hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy and soggy instead of crisp. Hot fat sets the crust quickly, sealing in moisture so the fish cooks through without drying out.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, egg, bread, fish, parsley, potato):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, egg, bread, fish, parsley, potato. 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.

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