Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Fried Fish, Fresh
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash and dry the fish pieces.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Dip each piece into the beaten eggs, then coat with flour or cracker crumbs.
Fry and serve
Fry in hot, fresh lard until golden brown.
Serve with sliced lemon.
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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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,889 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (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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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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
- Fish
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through as it fries.
- Eggs
- Bind the coating so flour or cracker crumbs adhere to the fish.
- Flour or cracker crumbs
- Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
- Lard
- Conducts heat to brown and crisp the coating while cooking the fish.
The step that matters
Fry in hot, fresh lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil instead of crisping, leaving the fish greasy and pale. Frying in hot fat sets the coating quickly so it browns and stays crisp.
“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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