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Smelts Fried

Fried smelts coated in egg and breadcrumbs, served with shrimp sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Smelts Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and dry the smelts with a cloth.

  2. Beat the egg and mix in pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Dip the smelts in the egg mixture, then coat them in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat fresh lard in a pan until very hot.

  2. Fry the smelts quickly until golden brown.

  3. Remove the smelts and place them on paper to drain.

  4. Sprinkle a little salt over the fried smelts.

  5. Arrange the smelts on a dish and serve with shrimp sauce.

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

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

  3. Shrimp + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,423 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + shrimptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Smelts
The main fish, which is cooked whole and becomes crisp outside while staying tender inside.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating stays on during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
Fresh lard
Conducts heat for frying, producing a crisp, browned surface.

The step that matters

Fry the smelts quickly until golden brown. The lard must be very hot before the fish goes in. Hot fat sets the crumb coating quickly, so it crisps rather than soaking up grease and falling off. Overcooking dries the small fish.

“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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