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Fbied Smelts a LA Parisienne

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Fbied Smelts a LA Parisienne

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the smelts thoroughly and cut down the back to remove the bone just below the head and above the tail.

  2. Clean the smelts well, cut away the fins and gills, and dry them.

  3. Dust the smelts with flour and roll them up by putting their tails in their mouths, fastening with a wooden skewer.

  4. Refrigerate the rolled smelts until ready to fry.

  5. Heat the oil or fat until very hot and fry the smelts in batches until golden brown.

  6. Keep the fried smelts warm until all are cooked.

  7. Boil the required number of eggs, using one half for each person, and remove the yolks.

  8. Place the egg whites in cold water and prepare Tartare sauce.

  9. When ready to serve, fill each egg half with Tartare sauce and arrange around the fish.

  10. Garnish with a bunch of parsley between each egg and serve the fish hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Smelt + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against smelt, flour, egg, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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