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Potted Smelts

Smelt fish are opened, buttered with pepper and salt, floured, and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potted Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the smelts

  1. Cut the smelts open and remove the air bladder.

  2. Wipe them dry without washing.

Fill and pot

  1. Roll a small piece of butter in pepper and salt, and place it inside each fish.

  2. Lay the smelts in a char-pot close together.

  3. Dredge lightly with flour and place a little butter between each fish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.

  2. Allow to cool before serving.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Smelt + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together198 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 main fish; they cook quickly and stay tender when baked whole with their butter filling.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, basting the fish as it bakes so it does not dry out.
Flour
A light dusting that helps the surface brown and gives the fish a slightly set coating.

The step that matters

Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.. Smelts are small and thin, so they cook through in minutes. Overbaking dries the delicate flesh, so check them early.

“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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