Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Axchovy Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
In a saucepan, melt a piece of cheese with butter or grease.
Add ½ pint of water, a little coarse sea salt, and a chopped anchovy.
Boil the mixture, adding flour until it forms a thick paste.
Stir in 2 beaten eggs until well combined.
Shape the mixture into small lumps and bake in the oven.
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.
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,330 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,697 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Cheese
- Provides the main savoury flavour and richness of the dish.
- Flour
- Thickens the mixture into a paste that holds its shape.
- Eggs
- Bind the paste and help the lumps set and hold together when baked.
- Anchovy
- Adds a salty, savoury depth of flavour to the cheese mixture.
The step that matters
Adding flour while boiling. Flour must be added gradually while the liquid boils so it thickens evenly without lumps. Adding it all at once can leave dry clumps and an uneven paste that is hard to shape.
“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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