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The Housewife's Toasts

A toast topped with a creamy anchovy and caper spread, garnished with olives and garden cress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The Housewife's Toasts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toasts

  1. Cut stale bread into 2-inch rounds.

  2. Fry the rounds in boiling fat until golden, then drain and let cool.

Make the anchovy cream

  1. In a mortar, combine cream cheese, butter, anchovies, capers, mustard, salt, and Nepal pepper.

  2. Pound the mixture, adding cream until it reaches a jam-like consistency.

  3. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Assemble and garnish

  1. Spread the mixture on the fried bread rounds using a palette knife dipped in warm water.

  2. Garnish each toast with an olive and sprinkle with garden cress.

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. Capers + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh cream cheese
Provides a soft, creamy base that gives the spread its body and mild tang.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, spreadable texture.
Anchovies
Contribute a salty, savoury depth that is the dominant flavour of the spread.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the rich cheese and butter.
Made mustard
Adds sharpness and a pungent note that balances the richness of the fats.
Stale bread
Forms a crisp base once fried, holding the spread without going soft.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a fine sieve. Sieving breaks down any remaining fibres and lumps from the anchovies and capers, producing a smooth, even spread that does not tear the fried bread.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream cheese, butter, mustard, pepper, cream, bread, sugar):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Capersthe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, butter, mustard, pepper, cream, bread, sugar. 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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