Skip to main content
Main

Anchovy Sauce

A sauce made with bechamel, anchovy essence, lemon, butter, flour, chicken stock, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Anchovy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare the bechamel sauce as directed.

  2. Add essence of anchovies to the sauce for flavor and color.

  3. Add a few drops of lemon juice just before serving.

  4. In a saucepan, melt the butter. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  5. Gradually add the chicken stock, stirring until it boils.

  6. Simmer for 15 minutes, skimming off any scum.

  7. Stir in the cream, lemon juice, salt, and nutmeg.

  8. Strain through a cloth. Return to the pan.

  9. Finish with fresh butter and chicken glaze.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness to its smooth, velvety texture.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked briefly with the butter.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, silkier mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a salty, savory flavor and a slight color to the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the chicken stock, stirring until it boils. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, evenly thickened sauce.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, butter, flour, chicken, cream, nutmeg):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, butter, flour, chicken, cream, nutmeg. 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.

More anchovy sauce recipes

for Fish 3for Steaks 3 See all 155 →

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes