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Devilled Eggs and Anchovy Toast

Deviled eggs served on buttered toast with anchovy paste and a mustard‑tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Devilled Eggs and Anchovy Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the egg filling

  1. In a pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the dry mustard, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and mushroom ketchup.

  3. Add the sliced hard-boiled eggs, seasoning with salt and pepper. Heat the mixture thoroughly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread anchovy paste on buttered toast and top with the egg mixture.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the main body and protein of the filling, which is warmed through in the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the warm sauce.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, tangy depth and salt-like umami to the filling.
Mushroom ketchup
Contributes concentrated savoury umami flavour to the filling.
Anchovy paste
Adds a salty, savoury umami base under the egg topping.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture thoroughly. Eggs and the sauce need to be heated evenly all the way through so the filling is hot and well blended. Gentle, even heat over medium prevents the butter and sauce from scorching while the eggs warm, and keeps the slices from breaking down into a rough, uneven mash.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, tomato, sauce, mushroom, ketchup, egg, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, tomato, sauce, mushroom, ketchup, egg, pepper. 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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