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Savoury Toasts

Savory toasts topped with anchovy paste and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Savoury Toasts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toasts

  1. Toast the slices of bread until golden brown.

  2. Spread a thick layer of butter on the toasted bread.

Make the anchovy paste

  1. In a mortar, mince the anchovies and pound them with a small piece of butter and cayenne pepper until smooth.

Assemble and heat

  1. Spread the anchovy paste over the buttered toast.

  2. Place the toasts in a Dutch oven until heated through.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Anchovy + peppertop 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

Anchovies
Provide the salty, savory flavour that defines the toast.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and carries the anchovy paste on the toast.
Bread
Forms the crisp base that holds the butter and paste.

The step that matters

Pounding the anchovy paste until smooth. Mincing and pounding the anchovies with butter breaks them into a fine, evenly blended paste. Large fish pieces would leave uneven salty bites and a grainy spread.

“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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