Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
To Fry Smelts
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the gills from the smelts without opening them.
Wash and dry the smelts thoroughly with a cloth.
Coat and fry
Dip the smelts into the beaten egg yolk.
Coat the smelts with a mixture of bread crumbs and flour.
Fry the smelts in hot oil until they are a clear golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes.
Serve
Serve the smelts very crisp and dry with melted butter.
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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour and butter 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
- Egg yolk
- Acts as a binding layer so the crumb coating adheres to the smelts.
- Bread crumbs
- Form the crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
- Flour
- Helps the coating stick and adds to the dry, crisp surface.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavour to the finished fish as a serving sauce.
The step that matters
Drying the smelts before coating. Any surface moisture turns to steam in hot oil and pushes the coating off, while a dry surface lets the crumbs brown and crisp evenly.
“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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