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Pickled Smelts

Smelts are pickled in a spice and wine vinegar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pickled Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe and draw the smelts.

  2. Layer the smelts in a deep dish.

Season and pickle

  1. Salt the smelts with pepper, ginger, mace, nutmeg, bay leaves, and coarse sea salt.

  2. In a pot, combine saltpetre, cochineal, red wine, and vinegar, and bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the boiling pickle over the smelts.

  4. Allow the mixture to cool completely, then cover tightly.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  5. Red wine + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together575 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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 the spiced pickle preserves and flavours.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the fish, helping preserve it.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the fish and keeps its colour during long pickling.
Vinegar
Acidity in the pickle that preserves the fish and sharpens its flavour.
Red wine
Adds body and flavour to the pickle liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling pickle over the smelts. The pickle must be fully boiled before it goes on the fish so the hot liquid helps kill surface microbes and dissolve the salts evenly. Letting it cool completely before covering keeps the cover from trapping heat and sealing in steam, which would encourage spoilage.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against smelt, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, red 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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