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Fried Smelts

Fried smelts coated in egg, breadcrumbs, flour, and salt, then fried until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Fried Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dry the smelts thoroughly.

  2. Beat the egg in a bowl.

  3. Dip the smelts in the egg, then coat them with a mixture of bread crumbs, flour, and salt.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat plenty of fat in a pan.

  2. Fry the smelts quickly until they are crisp and golden brown.

  3. 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

Smelts
The small whole fish form the main body of the dish, cooking into tender flesh inside a crisp coating.
Egg
Acts as a binder that helps the bread crumb and flour coating stick to the fish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crunchy outer layer that browns and crisps in hot fat.
Flour
Dries the surface of the fish and helps the coating brown evenly and adhere.
Fat
Conducts heat to the coating, driving crisping and golden browning during frying.

The step that matters

Fry quickly in hot fat. Hot fat browns and crisps the coating fast, before the delicate fish overcooks and dries out. Fat that is not hot enough soaks in and leaves the coating greasy and pale.

“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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