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Baked Smelts

Baked smelts are fish baked with herbs, wine, mushrooms, Spanish sauce, breadcrumbs, butter, lemon, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Smelts

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean the smelts and wipe them dry.

  2. Place them in a baking dish with herbs, white wine, pepper, and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover with mushrooms and Spanish sauce.

  2. Sprinkle lightly with breadcrumbs and warmed butter.

  3. Bake in a hot oven (400°F/200°C) for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with lemon juice and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Smelt + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Smelts
Provide the delicate white fish that is the main body of the dish and cooks quickly in the oven.
White wine
Adds moisture and acidity to the baking dish, helping the fish stay tender and flavourful.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, lightly browned topping that adds texture over the fish.
Warmed butter
Adds fat that helps the breadcrumb topping brown and gives richness.
Spanish sauce
Adds moisture and savoury flavour that keeps the fish from drying out while baking.

The step that matters

Bake in a hot oven for 10 minutes. Smelts are very thin and cook quickly, so a short time in a hot oven is needed; longer baking can dry the fish and toughen its flesh.

“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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