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Pickled Smelts,

Pickled smelts preserved in vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pickled Smelts,

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gut and wash the smelts thoroughly.

Pack the jar

  1. Lay the smelts in rows on their sides in a stone jar.

  2. Sprinkle the pepper, mace, cloves, sea salt, saltpetre, and cochineal between each row of smelts.

Pickle and seal

  1. Boil enough red-wine vinegar to completely cover the smelts.

  2. Once the vinegar is cool, pour it over the smelts and seal the jar tightly with a bladder.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Clove + winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Smelts
The main fish, which is packed in rows and cured by the vinegar.
Red-wine vinegar
Acid that preserves the fish and gives it a sharp, tangy flavour.
Saltpetre
Helps cure the fish and keeps its colour firm during pickling.
Cochineal
Natural red colouring that tints the fish and vinegar.
Sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the fish during curing.

The step that matters

Let the vinegar cool before pouring. Pouring hot vinegar over raw fish would partly cook it and could make the texture soft and uneven. Cooling it first keeps the fish firm while it pickles.

Swap the mace

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

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

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