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Feied Smelts

Smelts coated in flour and crumbs, fried in butter and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Feied Smelts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the smelts, cut off the tails, and dry them with a cloth.

  2. Melt the butter and mix it with the eggs in a bowl.

  3. Season the smelts with coarse sea salt and flour.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the smelts into the egg mixture, then roll them in cracker crumbs or grated bread.

  2. Fry the smelts in a mixture of hot lard and butter until they are a rich brown.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the coating so the crumbs stick to the fish.
Cracker crumbs or grated bread
Form a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.
Lard
Conducts heat into the fish and helps the coating fry crisp and brown.
Flour
Dries the fish surface so the coating adheres and crisps.
Butter
Adds richness and aroma and helps the coating brown.

The step that matters

Fry in hot fat until rich brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the smelts absorb grease and turn soggy before the crust sets.

“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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