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Smelts, to Pickle

Pickled smelts seasoned with pepper, mace, saltpetre, coarse sea salt, bay leaves, and red wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and red wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,075 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Smelts, to Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and wash the smelts thoroughly.

  2. Finely grind the pepper, mace, saltpetre, and coarse sea salt.

Pack and pickle

  1. Layer the smelts in a jar, sprinkling the seasoning and adding bay leaves between each layer.

  2. Boil enough red wine to cover the smelts and pour it over them.

  3. Cover with a plate, let cool, seal tightly, and store for later use.

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. Pepper + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Mace + red winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Smelt + macetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53 recipes
  5. Smelt + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together175 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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, which is preserved by the salt, spices and wine.
Red wine
Adds acidity and liquid that covers the fish and helps preserve it.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the fish and seasons it during curing.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the color and firm texture of the cured fish.

The step that matters

Sealing and cooling before storage. The wine must be fully cool and the jar tightly sealed so the fish stays covered and spoilage bacteria cannot grow. Pouring hot wine over the fish or leaving the jar loose risks an unsafe result.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (smelt, pepper, red wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against smelt, pepper, red wine. 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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