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Anchovy Essence

A liquid condiment made by boiling anchovies with water, herbs, and wine, then straining and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Anchovy Essence

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose well-pickled anchovies, avoiding sprats and those with red paint.

  2. Combine anchovies, water, bay leaves, pepper, horseradish, thyme, mace, shallots, port wine, and lemon rind in a pot.

Make and store

  1. Boil for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Pour the liquid into pint bottles, cork them, and store in a cool, dry place.

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. Horseradish + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the main savory, salty flavour that defines the essence.
Shallots
Add sweet, aromatic depth to the liquid as it simmers.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and fruity depth that rounds out the saltiness.
Lemon rind
Contributes bright aromatic oils that lift the savory flavours.

The step that matters

Boil for 20 minutes. Boiling long enough extracts flavour from the anchovies and aromatics into the water, but the liquid should be kept at a steady simmer so the fish breaks down evenly without scorching, which would make the essence bitter.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, horseradish, thyme, shallot, port wine, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, horseradish, thyme, shallot, port wine, lemon. 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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