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Smelts Fried

Fried smelts coated in egg and breadcrumbs, served with shrimp sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Smelt and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 103 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Smelts Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and dry the smelts with a cloth.

  2. Toss the smelts in the beaten egg mixed with pepper and salt.

  3. Shake the smelts in bread crumbs until coated.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a pan until very hot.

  2. Fry the smelts quickly until golden brown.

  3. Remove the smelts and place them on paper to drain.

Serve

  1. Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over the smelts.

  2. Arrange the smelts on a dish and serve with shrimp 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. Smelt + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Shrimp + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,423 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Bread + shrimptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Smelts
Main protein; the small fish cook through quickly in hot fat, becoming crisp outside.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating stays on during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot lard.
Lard
Hot frying fat that conducts heat quickly, browning and crisping the coating.

The step that matters

Fry the smelts quickly in very hot lard. Lard must be very hot before the fish goes in. Hot fat sets the breadcrumb coating fast, so it crisps and turns golden before the small fish overcooks and the coating soaks up grease and falls off.

“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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