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Fish Cutlet

Fish Cutlet is a fried fish patty made from flaked fish, milk, butter, flour, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Cutlet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil fresh halibut or cod in salted boiling water for 10 minutes per pound.

  2. Remove the fish and flake it finely.

Make the mixture

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk or cream to a boil.

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter and flour together, then add to the boiling milk.

  3. Stir in the chopped parsley, then add the yolks of the eggs and the flaked fish.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, onion juice, and nutmeg if desired.

  5. Let the mixture cool, then form into cutlets.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the cutlets in flour, dip in beaten egg, and coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlets in hot dripping until golden brown.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, melt butter in a saucepan, stir in flour, then add milk and season with salt and pepper.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flaked fish
Forms the main body of the cutlet and gives it its substance.
Milk or cream
Cooked with the butter and flour to form a thick binding base for the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a binding paste and helps the coating adhere before frying.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and add richness when the cutlets set.
Egg
Creates a sticky layer so the bread crumbs adhere to the cutlets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before forming cutlets. A warm, loose mixture cannot hold its shape and may slump or tear during coating. Cooling lets the starch-thickened binding firm up so the cutlets keep their form in the hot fat.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, milk, butter, flour, egg, parsley, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, butter, flour, egg, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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