Skip to main content
Main

Anchovy Toast

A toasted bread topped with anchovy paste, boiled egg slices, and a savory sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Anchovy Toast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 200°C (400°F) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the toast

  1. Toast the bread slices until golden.

  2. Cut the toasted slices into rounds.

  3. Butter the toast and spread with anchovy paste.

  4. Keep the toast warm in the oven at 200°C (400°F).

Make the egg topping

  1. In a saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter.

  2. Mix in the dry mustard, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and mushroom sauce, then heat the sauce until hot and smooth.

  3. Add the sliced hard-boiled eggs to the sauce, sprinkle with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper, and heat the mixture until warm.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the egg mixture on the warm toast.

  2. Pour the sauce over the toast.

  3. Garnish with thin slices of lemon and parsley before serving.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Provides a crisp, sturdy base that holds the topping.
Anchovy paste
Adds a salty, savoury depth that flavours the toast.
Hard-boiled eggs
Supply a soft, rich body to the topping.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds tangy, savoury acidity that deepens the sauce.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture, sweetness and acidity to the sauce.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp heat that balances the richness of the eggs and butter.

The step that matters

Heat the sauce until hot and smooth. If the sauce is overheated, the butter and sauces can separate and turn greasy. Gentle heat keeps the sauce emulsified and smooth, so it coats the eggs evenly.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, anchovy, tomato, sauce, mushroom, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, anchovy, tomato, sauce, mushroom, egg. 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.

More anchovy toast recipes

with Poached Eggs 5with Egg Yolk Cream 3 See all 93 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes