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Fried Smelts

Fried smelts are smelt fish coated in egg and breadcrumbs or cornmeal, then fried in lard and served with lemon and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fried Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Ensure the smelts are fresh and cleaned through the gills.

  2. Dip the smelts in beaten egg, then coat them with breadcrumbs or cornmeal.

  3. Let the smelts sit for at least 1 hour if time allows.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan until it boils.

  2. Fry the smelts until golden, about 5 minutes.

  3. Drain the smelts on a sieve or paper towel in the open oven door.

  4. Serve the smelts on a folded napkin, arranged two at right angles, with lemon and cayenne.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

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

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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; its delicate flesh cooks quickly and becomes crisp when fried.
Egg
Binds the breading to the fish so the crumbs or cornmeal stick evenly.
Bread crumbs or cornmeal
Forms a crisp, golden coating that protects the fish during frying.
Lard
Frying fat that conducts heat and browns the coating while keeping the fish moist.

The step that matters

Frying the smelts. Lard must be hot enough to fry rather than soak the coating; if the fat is too cool, the breading absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisp.

“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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