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Fried Smelts

Smelts are coated in beaten eggs and bread crumbs, fried until golden, and served with tartar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a slight opening at the gills of the smelts.

  2. Draw out the insides by pulling gently from the tail.

  3. Dip the cleaned smelts in beaten eggs.

  4. Coat the smelts in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the smelts in very hot Cottolene until golden brown.

  2. Drain the fried smelts, dust with coarse sea salt, and serve hot with tartar sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Smelt + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together150 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Smelt + eggtop 38% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together174 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Smelts
Small whole fish that cook quickly and stay tender when fried whole.
Beaten eggs
Bind the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating stays on while frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that protects the fish during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in very hot Cottolene. Oil that is hot enough seals the crumb coating quickly, producing a crisp golden crust before the delicate fish overcooks and absorbs grease. Oil that is too cool makes the coating soak up fat and turn soggy.

“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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