Why it works: Smelt and lemon work together. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 156 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
A Pretty Way to Serve Smelts
Ingredients
Directions
Fry the smelts in the usual way.
Skewer 2 or 3 smelts with a 4-inch silver-plated or polished wire skewer, running it through the eyes.
Place a slice of lemon on top of each skewerful.
Serve each skewer as a portion for one person.
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.
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Smelt + lemontop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together156 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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