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Anchovy Paste Foe Spanish Sandwiches

A spread made from anchovies, vinegar, pickles, egg yolks, parsley, pepper, olive oil, salt, and capers, served on thin bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Anchovy Paste Foe Spanish Sandwiches

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Pound the anchovies, vinegar, pickles, egg yolks, parsley, pepper, olive oil, salt, and capers in a mortar until a paste forms.

Assemble the sandwiches

  1. Butter one side of a thin slice of bread and spread it with the anchovy mixture.

  2. Sprinkle the mixture with chopped egg white.

  3. Top with another slice of thin bread.

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. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the salty, savoury flavour that defines the paste.
Egg yolks
Add richness and body, helping bind the paste together.
Olive oil
Adds fat for a smooth, spreadable texture and mellow flavour.
Capers
Contribute briny, sharp acidity that cuts through the richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the paste and balances the fat.

The step that matters

Pounding the paste until it forms. The paste must be worked until the oil and egg yolks emulsify and the solids break down evenly. If it is under-pounded, the mixture stays grainy and separates, making it hard to spread smoothly on the bread.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, egg, parsley, pepper, olive, bread):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, parsley, pepper, olive, bread. 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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