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Anchovy Toast

A toasted bread dish flavored with anchovy essence, butter, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Anchovy Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix essence of anchovy with melted butter and cut parsley.

  2. Dip each slice of bread in the mixture.

Cook

  1. Fry the slices until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  3. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Anchovy + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Essence of anchovy
Adds a concentrated savoury, salty flavour that defines the toast.
Melted butter
Carries the flavour into the bread and helps the slices brown when fried.
Slices of bread
Soaks up the butter mixture and becomes crisp and golden when fried.
Cut parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma that balances the rich anchovy and butter.

The step that matters

Frying the slices until golden brown. Bread soaked in butter browns quickly, so it can scorch before the centre heats through. Moderate heat and close watching give an even golden colour and a crisp surface.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (anchovy, butter, bread):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Garlicfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, butter, bread. 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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