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Anchovies, Fried

Anchovies are cleaned, head removed, battered, and fried until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Anchovies, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the anchovies thoroughly.

  2. Cut off the heads, open them, and remove the backbone carefully.

  3. If preferred, soak the anchovies in milk for 45 minutes and then flour before frying.

Fry

  1. Dip the anchovies in a light batter.

  2. Fry them in boiling oil or lard until slightly browned, about 5 minutes.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 main flavour and the body of the dish once fried.
Light batter
Forms a crisp coating that browns and protects the fish in hot oil.
Milk
Soaking softens the fish and mellows its strong flavour before frying.
Flour
Dries the surface so the coating adheres and crisps during frying.

The step that matters

Drying the anchovies thoroughly. Surface water turns to steam in boiling oil, causing spattering and a soggy coating. Dry fish lets the batter or flour crisp and brown evenly.

“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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