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Fkied Smelts

Fried smelts are breaded and deep‑fried fish served with parsley, lemon, and tartar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Fkied Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the smelts and sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Skewer the smelts into fancy shapes.

  3. Dip the skewered smelts in bread crumbs, then in beaten egg, and again in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the smelts in deep fat until golden brown.

  2. Drain on a folded napkin, garnish with parsley and lemon, and 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.

  1. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Smelts
The main fish, cooked whole so the crisp coating surrounds moist flesh.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating during frying.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating stays on.

The step that matters

Coating the smelts in egg and bread crumbs. If the fish is wet or the coating is loose, it can fall off or steam instead of crisping. Pat the smelts dry and press the crumbs on firmly so the coating sets and browns evenly in the hot fat.

“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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