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Savory Toasts

Savory toasts topped with buttered herring roes, seasoned with pepper, sea salt, anchovy vinegar, and coraline pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Roe and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 65 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Savory Toasts

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. In a sauté pan, cook the soft roes of fresh herrings with a little butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Place the cooked roes on the butter toast.

  3. Add a few drops of anchovy vinegar and dust with coraline pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Put the toasts in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1-2 minutes and serve hot.

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. Roe + anchovytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together65 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + roetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Soft roes of fresh herrings
Provide the rich, creamy filling that forms the body of the toast.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the roes cook gently and stay moist.
Butter toast
Gives a crisp, sturdy base that holds the roes without going soggy.
Anchovy vinegar
Adds a sharp, salty acidity that cuts through the richness of the roes.

The step that matters

Putting the toasts in the oven. Only 1-2 minutes is needed to warm the topping and toast without drying or overcooking the soft roes, so watch them closely.

“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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