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Himalade Qf Smelts

A stew of smelts cooked with water, vinegar, sherry wine, lettuce, shallots, pepper, salt, and anchovies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Himalade Qf Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Cook

  1. Turn the smelts around and place them in a stew-pan that will just hold them.

  2. Add water, vinegar, sherry wine, lettuce, shallots, whole white pepper, coarse sea salt, and anchovies.

  3. Bring to a boil over low heat for about 10 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool in the stew-pan to prevent breaking.

Serve

  1. Once cold, dish them and garnish with parsley or chopped aspic.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Lettuce + shallottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together157 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Vinegar + sherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Smelts
Form the main body of the dish, so they should be arranged snugly in the pan.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps firm the fish as it cooks.
Anchovies
Contribute savoury depth to the cooking liquid.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Let the fish cool in the liquid. Moving the smelts while they are still hot can break their delicate flesh. Cooling them slowly in the stew liquid lets the fish firm up and stay intact.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (smelt, vinegar, sherry, wine, lettuce, shallot, parsley):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against smelt, vinegar, sherry, wine, lettuce, shallot, parsley. 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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