Why it works: Anchovy and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,048 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare the fish
Boil the codfish with 2 bay leaves.
Remove the skin and bones from the fish.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, combine ½ pint of milk, butter, flour, 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon anchovy sauce, and parsley to make a sauce.
Mix the fish with the sauce.
Assemble and bake
Line a pie dish with mashed potatoes.
Pour the fish mixture into the dish and cover with more mashed potatoes.
Bake until golden brown.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,048 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together81,222 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Parsley + potatotop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,855 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Potato + milktop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Potato + buttertop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together6,445 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth sauce that binds the fish.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, helping the sauce taste full and smooth.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which sets thick once heated with flour.
- Potatoes
- Form the mashed layers that top and line the pie, setting and browning in the oven.
- Anchovy sauce
- Adds savoury depth and saltiness to the fish sauce.
- Worcestershire sauce
- Adds tangy, savoury flavour that deepens the sauce.
The step that matters
Mix the fish with the sauce. Flaking the fish gently and folding it through the sauce keeps it in tender pieces rather than a paste. Fish should also be free of skin and bones before mixing, since bones left in the filling are hard to spot once it is covered with potato.
Flavor stand-ins for the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (anchovy, sauce, potato, milk, butter, flour):
- Capersabout as good a flavor fit
- Parsleythe original
- Nutmegabout as good a flavor fit
- Garlicabout as good a flavor fit
Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, sauce, potato, milk, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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