Name: Anchovy Butter
Ingredients: ⅔ cup butter; ⅓ cup anchovy essence; 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg; ¼ teaspoon red pepper; 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Anchovy Butter

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, mix the butter and anchovy essence until well combined.
Add the grated Parmesan cheese, nutmeg, red pepper, and lemon juice, then stir until all ingredients are thoroughly blended.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,163 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Anchovy + parmesan cheesetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together165 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Provides fat and a rich, creamy body that carries the other flavors.
Anchovy essence: Supplies the savory, salty anchovy flavor that defines the butter.
Grated parmesan cheese: Adds savory depth and salty umami to the butter.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances its saltiness.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, anchovy, parmesan cheese, pepper, lemon):

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Celeryfits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, anchovy, parmesan cheese, pepper, lemon. 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.