Skip to main content
Main

Devilled Fish

A fried fish dish coated in peppered flour and served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Devilled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the fish thoroughly.

  2. In a bowl, mix together pepper, salt, cayenne, and flour.

  3. Dip each fish into the mixture one by one.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop the fish into hot fat and fry for one minute.

  2. Serve immediately.

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 + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

  3. Fish + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Small fish
Provides the main protein; drying them first helps the coating adhere and reduces splatter in the fat.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that crisps in the hot fat and helps seasoning cling to the fish.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that gives the coating its spicy, deviled flavor.

The step that matters

Drop the fish into hot fat and fry for one minute. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the flour coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy, and the fish cooks unevenly.

“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.

You might also like

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipes