Name: Scotch Woodcock
Ingredients: 2 hard-boiled eggs; 1 tablespoon butter; 2 teaspoons anchovy sauce; buttered toast

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Scotch Woodcock

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

2 hard-boiled eggs
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons anchovy sauce
buttered toast

Directions

Prepare

Chop the hard-boiled eggs finely.
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add the chopped eggs and anchovy sauce to the melted butter.

Assemble and serve

Arrange small squares or rounds of buttered toast on a plate.
Pour the egg and sauce mixture over the toast.
Place the plate over hot water for a few 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,330 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,697 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Hard-boiled eggs: Provide the main body of the topping, giving it a soft, crumbly texture.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, helping the egg mixture taste smooth and savoury.
Anchovy sauce: Adds salty, savoury depth that gives the dish its characteristic flavour.

“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.