Name: Anchovy Butter on Toast
Ingredients: 4 boned anchovies; ½ cup butter; 2 hard-boiled egg yolks; Paprika; Small, thin round pieces of toast; Lemon for garnish; Parsley for garnish

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Anchovy Butter on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovy butter

Pound the anchovies, butter, and egg yolks together in a mortar until smooth.
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.
If the anchovies were preserved in salt, soak them in milk or water for a few hours to freshen.

Assemble and serve

Butter the toast pieces lightly and spread a thin layer of anchovy butter on top.
Place a carefully fried or steamed egg on each piece of toast.
Garnish with lemon and parsley.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together44,316 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Anchovies: Provide the salty, savoury flavour that defines the butter.
Butter: Carries the anchovy flavour and gives the spread a smooth, rich body.
Egg yolks: Add richness and help bind the mixture into a smooth paste.

“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.