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Devilled Butter

A spread made from shallot, herbs, chili vinegar, anchovies, curry paste, butter, egg yolk, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Devilled Butter

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs

  1. Combine the shallot, tarragon, chervil, parsley, and chili vinegar in a small saucepan until covered.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Drain the mixture and let it cool.

Make the butter

  1. Wipe and bone the anchovies.

  2. Pound the anchovies in a mortar with the curry paste, butter, egg yolk, and the cooled herbs and shallot.

  3. Add a dust of cayenne or Nepaul pepper.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Serve

  1. Use as needed for devilled broiled meat, fish, biscuits, or toast.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Dissolve into the butter to add a deep, savory umami base.
Butter
Carries the other flavors and gives the mixture a rich, spreadable body.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the mixture into a smooth paste.
Curry paste
Supplies warm spice flavor that gives the devilled character.
Chili vinegar
Adds acidity and heat, and extracts flavor from the herbs and shallot.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pounding alone leaves fibrous herb and shallot pieces that make the butter gritty. Pressing it through a fine sieve breaks them down further and yields a smooth, even spread.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, tarragon, chervil, vinegar, butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, tarragon, chervil, vinegar, butter, 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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