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Fried Reed Birds

Fried Reed Birds are small fish fried in lard and butter after being coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Reed Birds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the birds and cut them down the back with scissors.

  2. Wash and dry them with a cloth.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each bird into the beaten egg yolk, then coat with bread crumbs or grated crackers.

  2. Fry in equal parts hot lard and butter until golden brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Acts as a binder so the crumb coating sticks to the birds.
Bread crumbs or grated crackers
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
Lard
Conducts heat well and gives the fried coating a crisp, savoury crust.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the coating brown.

The step that matters

Fry in equal parts hot lard and butter until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the coating quickly. If it is too cool, the crumbs absorb oil and turn greasy instead of crisp. Butter browns quickly, so watch the colour closely.

“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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