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Anchovy Toast

A toasted bread round topped with anchovy paste, poached egg, salt, pepper, and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Anchovy Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Use a large biscuit cutter to cut rounds of fresh bread about 1 inch thick.

  2. Toast the bread until light brown.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread anchovy paste on each toasted round.

  2. Place a poached egg on top of each round.

  3. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Cover with rich tomato sauce or hot Hollandaise sauce.

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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh bread
Forms the crisp base that holds the toppings.
Anchovy paste
Adds a salty, savory depth to the toast.
Eggs
Provide a soft, rich topping that adds creaminess when the yolk breaks.

The step that matters

Toast the bread until light brown. Toasting dries the bread surface so it stays crisp under the wet toppings instead of turning soggy. Light browning adds flavor through the Maillard reaction without bitterness.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, anchovy, egg, pepper. 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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