Why it works: Fish and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 637 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Boiled Fish with Melted Butter and Anchovy
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the fish
Boil the fish until cooked through.
Make the sauce and serve
In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.
Add a few drops of anchovy essence to the melted butter.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper to taste.
Serve the fish with the melted butter and anchovy sauce drizzled on top.
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.
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Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together637 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,697 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Anchovy + peppertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,232 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,948 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
- Fish
- Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks through.
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries the flavour of the anchovy essence across the fish.
- Anchovy essence
- Adds a savoury, salty depth to the butter sauce.
The step that matters
Boil the fish until cooked through. Fish proteins toughen and dry out quickly once past opaque, so stop boiling as soon as the flesh is just cooked through.
“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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