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Anchovy Eggs

A dish of hard‑boiled eggs filled with a mixture of yolks, butter, anchovy sauce, cream, and cayenne pepper, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Anchovy Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the eggs

  1. Remove the shells from the hard-boiled eggs and cut them in half lengthwise.

  2. Remove the yolks and mash them with butter, anchovy sauce, cream or milk, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Fill the egg whites with the yolk mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the filled eggs in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a few minutes.

  2. Serve the eggs on hot buttered toast.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the whites that hold the filling and the yolks that become the creamy base.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed yolk filling.
Anchovy sauce
Contributes a salty, savory depth to the yolk filling.
Cream or milk
Loosens the mashed yolks so the filling becomes smooth and spreadable.

The step that matters

Mashing the yolks into a smooth filling. Yolks mashed with butter and liquid emulsify into a smooth, spreadable filling. Lumps or dry yolk make the filling crumbly and uneven when it is spooned into the whites.

“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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