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Entree of Smelts, &C

A dish of fried smelts served with a cod and béchamel sauce stew.

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 ↓

Entree of Smelts, &C

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and turn the smelts, then fry them until golden brown.

  2. Pull the cod into flakes.

Make the stew

  1. In a bowl, whisk the béchamel sauce with the egg yolks.

  2. Add the cod flakes, then season with salt and lemon juice.

  3. Simmer the mixture over low heat until the fish is cooked through.

Serve

  1. Serve the fried smelts around the dish with the cod stew in the center.

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. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Smelt + lemontop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together156 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Smelt + eggtop 38% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together174 recipes

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Smelts
Provide crisp, golden fried fish for texture and contrast with the stew.
Slice of fresh crimped cod
Forms the flaky, mild main body of the stew.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they gently set over heat.
Bechamel sauce
Gives the stew a smooth, creamy body that holds the fish together.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild fish and sharpens the flavor.

The step that matters

Simmering the egg yolks mixture. Egg yolks thicken by gently setting. Over high heat or for too long they can curdle and turn grainy, so keep the heat low and stir while the fish cooks through.

“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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