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Scotch Woodcock

A toast topped with a creamy anchovy paste and chopped hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Scotch Woodcock

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Scotch Woodcock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the hard-boiled eggs finely.

  2. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the butter until smooth.

  4. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling milk.

Make the topping

  1. Add the anchovy paste, cayenne, and salt, and mix well.

  2. Stir in the chopped eggs and heat for 1 minute.

  3. Pour the mixture over hot toast.

  4. Serve immediately.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 chopped body and substance of the creamy topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that smooths the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, spoonable sauce.
Anchovy paste
Adds a salty, savory depth that defines the dish's flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the flour mixture into the boiling milk. Flour must be fully blended into the butter first and added to hot liquid while stirring constantly, otherwise it clumps instead of thickening the sauce smoothly.

“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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