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To Fry Smelts

Smelts coated in egg yolk and breadcrumbs, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Fry Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Draw the smelts at the gills without opening them.

  2. Wash and dry the smelts thoroughly with a cloth.

Coat

  1. Dip the smelts into the beaten egg yolk.

  2. Coat the smelts with bread crumbs mixed with a small amount of flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the smelts in hot oil until they are a clear golden brown.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Smelt + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Smelt + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together150 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Fresh smelts
The main fish, cooked whole so the crumb coating protects its delicate flesh while frying.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder that helps the bread crumbs and flour stick to the fish.
Finest bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in hot oil.
Flour
Mixed with the crumbs to help the coating adhere and brown evenly.

The step that matters

Drying the smelts before coating. Surface water turns to steam in hot oil and pushes the coating off, so the fish must be dry for the crumbs to stay on and crisp.

“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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