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Pried Smelts

Smelt fillets coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Pried Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the smelts.

  2. Dip each fish in milk, then in flour.

  3. Beat the egg with cold water.

  4. Shake off excess flour and dip each fish in the egg, then coat with bread-crumbs.

  5. Place the coated fish on a bed of cracker-dust.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a deep kettle until very hot.

  2. Test the oil by dropping in a piece of bread; it should turn pale brown quickly.

  3. Fry the fish in batches, ensuring the oil is hot enough for a beautiful yellow-brown color in about one minute.

  4. Serve with tartar sauce or caper 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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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; small, even-sized pieces cook through quickly and evenly in hot fat.
Egg
Binds the flour and crumb coating so it adheres to the fish during frying.
Flour
Dries the fish surface so the egg wash and crumbs stick evenly.
Bread-crumbs or cracker-dust
Forms a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Lard
Frying fat that conducts high heat and browns the coating.

The step that matters

Testing and keeping the frying oil hot. If the lard is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it crisps. Testing with bread confirms the temperature, and frying in batches stops the oil from cooling too much.

“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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