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Smelts Milanaise

Smelts Milanaise is a baked fish dish with flour, butter, cayenne pepper, Parmesan, breadcrumbs, tomato sauce, and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Smelts Milanaise

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Roll the trimmed smelts in flour.

  3. Melt the butter in a hot dish and roll the fish in the melted butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Sprinkle with cayenne pepper and grated Parmesan.

  2. Place the smelts side by side in a well-buttered paper bag.

  3. Cover lightly with breadcrumbs and pour tomato sauce between each smelt.

  4. Seal the bag and cook for 8 minutes in the hot oven.

  5. Serve with slices of lemon.

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

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Parmesan cheese + tomatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,490 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Smelts
The main fish, which cooks quickly and turns tender in the sealed bag.
Flour
Coats the fish so the butter clings and the surface can brown lightly.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the coating brown and flavouring the fish.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and helps the topping brown as it cooks.
Breadcrumbs
Form a light crumb topping that adds texture over the fish.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity, keeping the fish juicy in the bag.

The step that matters

Sealing the bag before baking. The sealed paper bag traps steam, gently cooking the fish in its own juices and sauce. If the bag is left open or loosely closed, the smelts can dry out before they are cooked through.

“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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