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Sauce

Anchovy Sauce

A savory sauce made with butter, anchovy essence, lemon, salt, and pepper, served with fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the drawn butter, essence of anchovy, and lemon extract.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Bring to a boil once, then remove from heat.

  4. Serve with baked or boiled fish.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Anchovy + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Anchovy + peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Drawn butter
Forms the rich fat base that carries the sauce's flavour and gives it body.
Essence of anchovy
Supplies the savoury, salty depth that defines the sauce.
Lemon extract
Adds a bright, acidic citrus aroma that lifts the rich butter.

The step that matters

Bringing to a boil once, then removing from heat. Butter emulsions can separate if overheated, so a single brief boil and prompt removal from heat keeps the sauce smooth and prevents the butter from breaking.

“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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