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Fried Fish

Fried fish coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, then fried until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fried Fish

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 ↓

Fried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish and wipe it dry.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Dip the fish in flour, then in beaten egg, and finally in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the fish in deep butter or other fat over a hot fire for 1-2 hours, depending on the size of the fish, until crisp but not scorched.

  2. Drain the fish on paper towels and serve with PATICY and onion.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
The main protein, cooked through by frying in fat.
Flour
Forms a dry base so the egg and crumbs adhere to the fish.
Egg
Binds the flour to the bread crumbs, helping the coating stick.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.
Butter or other fat for frying
Conducts heat to crisp and brown the coating.

The step that matters

Frying until crisp but not scorched. Frying at a steady hot temperature browns the crumb coating while the fish cooks through. Too much heat scorches the crumbs before the interior is done, while too little leaves the coating greasy and soft.

“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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