Why it works: Smelt and flour work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 164 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Small Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Clean and dry the small fish thoroughly.
Shake the fish in a floured cloth to coat them with flour.
Fry
Heat oil in a pan and fry the fish until golden brown.
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.
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Smelt + flourtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together164 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Fish + smelttop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together71 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Fish + flourtop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,532 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Small fish
- The main ingredient, cooked whole until its skin and flesh turn crisp and golden.
- Flour
- Forms a dry coating on the fish that helps it brown and crisp when fried.
The step that matters
Drying the fish before flouring. Surface moisture makes the flour clump and steam instead of crisping, so the fish should be dry before it is coated and fried.
“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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