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Croutons d'Anchois Au Fromage

Anchovy cheese croutons are toasted bread slices filled with a buttery anchovy, curry, egg yolk, and Parmesan mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Croutons d'Anchois Au Fromage

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Pound the anchovies with the butter in a mortar.

  2. Add the curry powder, egg yolks, and grated Parmesan cheese, and warm the mixture in a saucepan.

  3. Prepare the bread by splitting each slice open like a muffin.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread the anchovy mixture thickly between the slices of toast.

  2. Sprinkle with additional Parmesan cheese and season with cayenne pepper.

  3. Press two slices together, cut them into fingers, and place them in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for a few minutes.

  4. Arrange the fingers on a dish in a lattice-work fashion, garnish with fresh parsley, and serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide a salty, savory flavor base that carries through the whole filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the anchovy mixture a smooth, spreadable texture.
Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the warmed mixture, giving it a creamy, binding texture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory depth and browns in the oven, forming a golden topping.
Bread
Serves as the crisp base that holds the filling and firms up in the oven.

The step that matters

Warming the egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but can scramble if they get too hot. Warm the mixture slowly over low heat and keep stirring so it becomes smooth and creamy rather than grainy.

“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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