Name: Fried Smelts
Ingredients: smelts; bread crumbs; beef dripping or deep fat; sauce tartare (mayonnaise with chopped pickles and capers)

Why it works: Smelt and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 103 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fried Smelts

Ingredients

smelts
bread crumbs
beef dripping or deep fat
sauce tartare (mayonnaise with chopped pickles and capers)

Directions

Bread the smelts ahead of time.
Heat beef dripping or deep fat in a pan.
Fry the smelts until they are a delicate brown.
Serve with sauce tartare.

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.

Smelt + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together103 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together678 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,032 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Bread + caperstop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together307 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Smelt + caperstop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).