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Smelts, Fried

A fried fish dish made with smelts coated in flour, eggs, breadcrumbs and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Smelts, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and wipe the smelts. Trim off the fins.

  2. Soak the smelts in milk.

  3. Coat the smelts well with flour. Alternatively, flour the smelts.

  4. Dip the smelts in beaten eggs.

  5. Coat the smelts with breadcrumbs.

Fry

  1. Heat oil in a pan over medium-high heat.

  2. Fry the smelts until they are crisp and brown, about 3 to 5 minutes.

  3. Carefully remove the smelts with a slotted spoon.

  4. Drain the smelts on paper towels.

  5. Sprinkle the smelts with coarse sea salt.

Serve

  1. Serve the smelts on a napkin on a dish.

  2. Garnish each smelt with half a lemon.

  3. Garnish each smelt with fried parsley.

  4. Optionally serve with shrimp or 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Smelts
Small whole fish that become crisp and tender when fried.
Milk
Soaking in milk moisturizes the fish and helps the coating adhere.
All-purpose flour
Forms a dry first layer that helps the egg and breadcrumbs stick.
Eggs
Bind the breadcrumb coating to the fish and help it set and brown.
Breadcrumbs
Form the crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the smelts until crisp and brown. Oil that is hot enough sets the coating quickly, so the crust browns before the delicate fish overcooks. Oil that is too cool lets the coating soak up grease and turn soggy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (smelt, milk, flour, egg, lemon):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against smelt, milk, flour, egg, lemon. 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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