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Sauce

Anchovy Sauce

A savory sauce made with butter, flour, anchovy essence, stock, milk, water, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Anchovy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Melt the butter in an enamelled pan.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth.

  3. Slowly add the stock or milk and water until it boils.

  4. Let it boil for at least three minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat.

  2. Add the seasonings and serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Anchovy + fishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, and forms the base of the thickened sauce.
Anchovy essence
Gives a strong savoury, salty aroma and flavour to the sauce.
Fish stock or white stock
Supplies the main liquid and savoury depth of the sauce.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, mellow body to the sauce.
Water
Thins the sauce to a pourable consistency alongside the stock or milk.

The step that matters

Let it boil for at least three minutes. Flour thickens the sauce only once it is heated with the liquid, and boiling fully cooks the starch, which removes any raw, floury taste.

“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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