Name: Mock Smelts
Ingredients: 3 large eggs; 1 teaspoon salt; flour (enough to make a stiff dough); 1 pint bread crumbs; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 cup milk

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 ↓

Mock Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the noodle dough

Make noodle dough by beating together eggs, salt, and enough flour to form a stiff dough.
Cut the dough into four pieces and roll out each piece thinly.
Spread the rolled dough on paper to dry, then roll it up.
Using a sharp knife, shave the roll into thin rings.

Cook and serve

Boil the rings in water for 5 minutes.
In a frying pan, brown the bread crumbs in butter.
Skim the mock smelts into the browned crumbs.
Pour the milk over the mixture and heat until warm, then serve.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

Eggs: Bind the dough and give the noodles structure so they hold their shape.
Flour: Forms the stiff dough that gives the rings their body.
Bread crumbs: Browned in butter, they add toasty flavor and a crisp, golden texture.
Butter: Browns the bread crumbs and adds richness and aroma.
Milk: Moistens the crumb mixture and adds creaminess when heated.

“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.