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To Fry Smelts

A fried fish dish using smelts coated in egg yolks and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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

  1. Do not wash the smelts more than necessary.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

  3. Dip each smelt in the egg yolks, then coat with bread crumbs.

  4. Fry the smelts in the butter until golden brown on both sides.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Smelt + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together150 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Smelts
The main fish, which cooks quickly in hot fat to firm, tender flesh.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns during frying.
Egg yolks
Bind the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating adheres while frying.
Butter
Provides fat for frying, adding richness and helping the coating brown.

The step that matters

Fry over medium heat until golden. Butter contains milk solids that brown quickly and can burn if the pan is too hot. Medium heat lets the fish cook through and the coating turn golden before it darkens or scorches.

“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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