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Pickled Smelts, Preferred to Anchovies

A preserved fish dish made by pickling small smelts in a seasoned salt and vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and laurel are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,516 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Smelts, Preferred to Anchovies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut open the fish at the belly and wipe them out with damp cloths.

Season and layer

  1. Mix saltpeter, coarse sea salt, mace, cloves, black pepper, and cochineal well.

  2. Layer the fish in a deep jar, alternating with the seasoning mixture and replacing the roe.

  3. Press the fish down in the jar.

Pickle

  1. Boil enough pickling vinegar with bay leaves and laurel leaves, then let it cool.

  2. Pour the cooled vinegar over the fish and tie leather over the jar.

  3. Let the fish pickle for at least three months, preferably six for better flavor.

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. Clove + laureltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + laureltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Mace + laureltop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Smelts
The fish are the main ingredient, preserved by salt and vinegar in the jar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the fish and helps preserve it against spoilage.
Saltpetre
Helps keep the fish firm and gives it a cured color and flavor.
Pickling vinegar
Acidity that preserves the fish and sharpens its flavor during pickling.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic flavor that infuses the fish during pickling.

The step that matters

Pressing the fish down in the jar. Fish left exposed above the liquid can spoil or discolor. Pressing them down keeps them submerged in the vinegar and seasoning, which is what preserves them over the long pickling time.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, smelt, clove, pepper, vinegar, laurel):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, smelt, clove, pepper, vinegar, laurel. 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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