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Tench with Anchovy Butter

A boiled tench served with a sauce of melted butter, milk, and anchovy butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tench with Anchovy Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Boil the tench in salted water until cooked.

  2. Place the cooked tench on a serving dish without a napkin.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine melted butter and milk over medium heat.

  2. When the mixture is about to boil, add the anchovy butter.

  3. Stir until the anchovy butter is melted.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the tench and serve.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + anchovytop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together574 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Tench
Provides the main flesh, which turns flaky and tender when cooked gently in salted water.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a silky, coating texture to the sauce.
Milk
Adds body and creaminess, helping the butter blend into a smooth sauce.
Anchovy butter
Adds savoury, salty depth and a rounded umami flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the anchovy butter to the hot milk and butter. Milk proteins and butterfat can separate or curdle if the mixture boils hard. Adding the anchovy butter just as it nears boiling, then stirring gently, keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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