Skip to main content
Main

Whiting, Fried

Fried whiting coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Whiting, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash, clean, and dry the fish, then remove its skin.

  2. Fasten the tail in the mouth with a small skewer.

  3. Mix flour, salt, and pepper, then rub it into the fish.

Coat and fry

  1. Brush the fish with egg and coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry in hot fat at 400°F (200°C) until nicely browned, about 6 to 7 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on fish paper, garnished with crisply‑fried parsley.

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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Whiting + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Whiting + peppertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
The main protein, which is cooked through while the coating crisps around it.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumbs adhere to the fish.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown coating when fried.
Flour
Dries the fish surface so the egg and breadcrumbs stick evenly.

The step that matters

Frying the coated fish. Fat must be hot enough to brown the breadcrumbs quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it crisps, and the fish may cook 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.

More fried whiting recipes

Fillets 4 See all 45 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes