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Angels on Horseback

A toasted bread appetizer topped with anchovy paste, bacon, and oyster, garnished with parsley and served with oyster liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Angels on Horseback

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the bread slices in clarified butter until golden brown.

  2. Spread a thin layer of anchovy paste on each slice.

  3. Top each slice with a piece of fried bacon.

  4. Place a warmed oyster on top of the bacon, seasoned with a dust of nutmeg.

Serve

  1. Garnish with chopped parsley and arrange on a plate.

  2. Pour the oyster liquor around the bread slices and serve.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Anchovy + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the crisp, golden base that holds the toppings.
Oysters
Provide the briny, tender seafood centre of the dish.
Bacon
Adds salty, savoury fat and crispness beneath the oyster.
Anchovy paste
Adds a deep, salty umami note that seasons the toast.
Oyster liquor
Adds moisture and concentrated oyster flavour to the plate.

The step that matters

Fry the bread until golden brown. Frying in clarified butter browns the bread through the Maillard reaction and crisps the surface. Pale or soggy bread would not hold the toppings or the oyster liquor well.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

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