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Anchovy Toast

A toasted bread topped with anchovy paste and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Anchovy Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toast

  1. Butter the toasted bread.

  2. Spread a little anchovy paste on top.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the egg yolks and cream.

  2. Heat gently to thicken without boiling.

  3. Season the mixture with cayenne pepper.

  4. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  5. Add anchovy paste and pepper, and simmer.

  6. Stir in flour and cook until thick.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the hot toast and serve immediately.

  2. Pour over buttered toast and serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a silky mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sauce and helping it thicken smoothly with the yolks.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by absorbing liquid as it cooks, giving it body.
Anchovy paste
Adds salty, savoury depth that gives the sauce and toast its characteristic flavour.

The step that matters

Heat gently to thicken without boiling. Egg yolks begin to set at moderate temperatures and curdle or scramble if overheated. Gentle heat lets the yolk and cream thicken into a smooth sauce instead of lumps.

“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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