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Smelts Milanaise

Smelts prepared in a Milanese style, coated in flour and butter, baked with cayenne, Parmesan, breadcrumbs, and tomato sauce, served with lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Smelts Milanaise

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the smelts

  1. Roll the trimmed smelts in flour.

  2. Melt the butter in a very hot dish.

  3. Roll the fish in the melted butter.

  4. Sprinkle with cayenne pepper and grated Parmesan.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the smelts side by side in a well-buttered paper bag.

  2. Cover lightly with bread crumbs and pour a little tomato sauce between each smelt.

  3. Seal the bag and cook for 8 minutes in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  4. Serve with slices of lemon.

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

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (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, which cooks quickly in the bag and turns tender and flaky.
Flour
Coats the fish so the butter clings and the surface browns lightly.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the coated fish brown while it cooks.
Parmesan
Adds savoury, salty flavour and helps the crust brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping over the fish.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity so the fish steams gently in the bag.

The step that matters

Seal the bag and bake in a very hot oven. The bag traps steam so the fish cooks gently in its own moisture. If the oven is not hot enough or the bag is not sealed, the smelts can dry out or cook unevenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (smelt, flour, butter, pepper, bread, tomato, sauce):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Cherryfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against smelt, flour, butter, pepper, bread, tomato, sauce. 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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