Skip to main content
Main

Halibut Steak

Fried halibut steaks coated in beaten eggs and crushed crackers, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Halibut Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the halibut steaks.

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  3. Crush the crackers until fine.

Coat and cook

  1. Dip each steak into the beaten eggs, then coat with crushed crackers after salting the fish.

  2. Fry the coated steaks in hot fat until golden brown, or broil on a buttered grill over a clear fire, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  3. Serve in a hot dish, butter well, and cover closely.

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

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Eggs
Bind the cracker coating to the fish and help it set and brown when fried.
Crackers
Form a crisp, browned crust around the fish during frying or broiling.
Halibut steaks (in the method)
Provide the main flesh that is cooked through beneath the coating.
Fat
Conducts heat to brown the coating and gives the crust its golden color and richness.

The step that matters

Frying or broiling until golden brown. Fish is delicate and cooks quickly, so heat that is too low leaves the coating greasy and pale while heat that is too high burns the crust before the fish is cooked through.

“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.

You might also like

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