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To Fbt Smelts

Smelts are fried or baked after being coated in egg yolk, breadcrumbs, and flour, then seasoned with salt, mace, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Fbt Smelts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the smelts

  1. Draw the smelts at the gills without opening them.

  2. Wash and dry the smelts thoroughly with a cloth.

  3. Dip the smelts in beaten egg yolk.

  4. Coat the smelts with a mixture of fine bread crumbs and a small amount of flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the smelts in clarified butter until they are a clear golden brown.

  2. Serve the smelts crisp and dry with melted butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Arrange the prepared smelts in a dish with clarified butter, season with salt, mace, and cayenne, and cover with fine bread crumbs.

  2. Moisten the crumbs with clarified butter.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown, about 10 minutes.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Bread + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Smelts
Provide the delicate fish that is the main component of the dish.
Beaten egg yolk
Acts as a binding layer so the bread crumbs adhere to the fish.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that protects the fish during cooking.
Clarified butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds rich flavour and browning.
Flour
Helps the coating adhere and build a dry, crisp crust.

The step that matters

Fry the smelts in clarified butter until clear golden brown. Small fish cook quickly, so overcooking dries the flesh while undercooking leaves the coating pale and soft. Drying the fish first keeps the crumb coating from steaming and falling off in the hot fat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (smelt, egg, bread, flour, butter, sherry, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against smelt, egg, bread, flour, butter, sherry, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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