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To Fry Smelts

Smelts are lightly floured, dipped in egg, coated in breadcrumbs, and fried in boiling lard, served with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Fry Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Ensure smelts are very fresh and clean them as necessary.

  2. Dry the smelts with a cloth.

  3. Lightly flour the smelts.

  4. Dip the floured smelts in beaten egg.

  5. Sprinkle fine bread crumbs over the smelts.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the smelts in boiling lard until they are a nice pale brown.

  2. Avoid removing the light roughness of the crumbs.

  3. Drain the smelts before the fire.

  4. Serve with plain melted butter.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Dry coating that helps the egg and crumbs adhere to the smelts.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the floured fish so they stay in place while frying.
Fine bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden-brown outer crust when fried.
Boiling lard
Fries the coating quickly, crisping the crust and browning it.
Plain melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth fat to the served fish.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling lard until pale brown. The lard must be hot enough to crisp the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the smelts absorb fat and turn greasy and soggy before the crust sets.

“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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