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Smelts

Smelts seasoned with pepper, nutmeg, mace, salt, saltpetre, bay leaves, and covered in red wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash, clean, and gut the smelts.

  2. Mix the pepper, nutmeg, mace, coarse sea salt, and saltpetre finely.

Pack and cover

  1. Layer the smelts in a jar, sprinkling the seasoning and adding bay leaves between layers.

  2. Boil red wine and pour enough over the smelts to cover them.

  3. Cover with a plate, let cool, then seal tightly and store for later use.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mace + red winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 fish is the main ingredient that is preserved by the salt and wine.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and acts as the main preservative in the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the fish and keeps its colour during curing.
Red wine
Covers the fish and adds acidity and flavour while it keeps.

The step that matters

Sealing the jar after cooling. The wine must be fully cooled before sealing, because trapped heat can create condensation and encourage spoilage. The fish must stay fully covered by liquid, since exposure to air allows spoilage microbes to grow.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (smelt, pepper, nutmeg, red wine):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against smelt, pepper, nutmeg, red wine. 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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