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Anchovy Sauce for Fish

A sauce made from anchovies, butter, cayenne pepper, and optional lemon juice, simmered or boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Anchovy Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the anchovy paste

  1. Remove the bones from the anchovies and pound them in a mortar with 2 tablespoons of butter to form a paste.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the melted butter.

  2. Stir in the pounded anchovies and cayenne pepper.

  3. Simmer for 3 to 4 minutes.

  4. If desired, add a squeeze of lemon juice.

  5. Alternatively, mix 1½ tablespoons of anchovy essence into 1 pint of melted butter.

  6. Season to taste.

  7. Boil for 1 minute before serving hot.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 depth that defines the sauce's flavour.
Butter
Carries the anchovy flavour and gives the sauce a rich, smooth body.

The step that matters

Simmer after adding the anchovies. Anchovies are mostly protein and salt; a short gentle simmer lets them dissolve evenly into the butter, while overheating can make the sauce taste harsh or separate. Boiling briefly before serving keeps it hot and well blended.

“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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