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Smelts

Smelts prepared by cleaning, soaking in milk, dredging in flour, frying until golden, or baking au gratin with herbs, pepper, salt, butter, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the smelts

  1. Clean the smelts.

  2. Soak them in milk.

  3. Dredge the smelts in flour.

Cook

  1. Fry the floured smelts until golden brown.

  2. Alternatively, dress them au gratin with fine herbs, pepper, salt, butter, and bread crumbs.

  3. Bake in a dish at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
The main ingredient; small, delicate fish that turn tender and flaky when cooked through.
Milk
Soaking in milk mellows the fish's flavor and helps keep the flesh moist.
Flour
A light dusting forms a coating that fries to a crisp, golden surface.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the au gratin topping brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping in the au gratin version.

The step that matters

Fry the floured smelts until golden brown. The flour coating browns quickly and small fish cook fast, so too much heat can scorch the coating before the fish is cooked 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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